MSNBC Hosts Battle Right-Wing Think Tank Leader in Tense Debate on Immigration: ‘Are You Talking About Going Door-to-Door’ to Deport Them?

MSNBC’s The Weekend invited a surprising guest to their set on Saturday in Kevin Roberts — president of the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank. And when the subject of immigration was broached, the discussion got tense.

Hosts Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele and Symone Sanders-Townsend tried to pin Roberts down on the details of the Heritage foundation’s Project 2025 — a series of conservative policy proposals put out by the Right-wing think tank. Menendez wanted to know about the specifics of the group’s immigration plan.

“I’m specifically interested, as it relates, Doctor Roberts, to the deportation of immigrants in this country, just understanding sort of how it is going to work,” Menendez said.. “When you talk about folks on the interior, how you see, a future administration utilizing the National Guard, ICE, police forces to deport something like 11 million people.”

“Well, first of all, we need to close the border,” Roberts said. “And secondly, we need to have the biggest mass deportation system ever in the history of America because it is unjust and illegal and evil that more than 10 million illegal aliens have come to this country. It’s imperative that we send those people back, invite them back to come through the legal system. We love immigrants and heritage, but we also love the rule of law.”

Sanders-Townsend pressed for specifics.

“How do you plan to carry that out?” Sanders-Townsend asked. “Are you talking about going door-to-door?”

Roberts argued that a hard-line policy would convince many migrants to leave on their own.

“There’s going to be a lot of self-deportation,” Roberts said. “The interesting thing, as you no doubt know, is that simply talking about this and beginning to implement a plan — and President [Donald] Trump deserves a lot of credit for talking about this, causes people to say, ‘I don’t want to run the risk of being arrested for doing something illegal.’ But secondly, there are great plans using the Department of Homeland Security to return to these people back to south of the border.”

“What do these people do? … The 11 million, 20 million, whatever you want to deport?” Steele asked.

“A lot of them are committing crimes, like murdering the 12 year old girl in Houston,” Roberts replied — referring to the two suspects in the killing of Jocelyn Nungaray. The men charged in the killing are Venezuelan migrants who entered the U.S. illegally.

A bit later, the hosts battled Roberts on the nomenclature he used throughout the discussion.

“What is the difference between an illegal immigrant who unfortunately engages in that activity—” Steele said, before being interrupted by Sanders-Townsend.

“I want to be clear,” she said. “We don’t use the term ‘illegal.’ Undocumented individuals.”

“That’s sweet,” Roberts said. “They’re illegal aliens.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.