Anti-Trump Town Hall Fan Attacks ICE As ‘Villainous Bunch’ Of ‘Racist Thugs’

A fan at an anti-Trump town hall hosted by podcast host and independent journalist Jim Acosta attacked ICE agnets as “racist thugs” and a “villainous bunch of people who hate immigrants.”

Acosta hosted a live Town Hall event on Thursday night’s edition of The Jim Acosta Show at the University of Virginia, along with Jan. 6 cop Michael Fanone.

When the man asked if ICE agents were always this way, Fanone defended them — sort of:

JIM ACOSTA: This gentleman right here in the vest, sharp looking vest right here, this man.

ANTI-TRUMP AUDIENCE MEMBER: Michael, I have a question about ICE, and I don’t know whether you knew ICE or have had experience with them, but there’s heavy recruiting going on right now, and I’m sure they’re attracting lots of racist thugs who like nothing better than to zip tie immigrants and march them out into the street in preparation for leaving the country.

But was ICE always like that? I mean, where are the people who have been in ICE for a long time? Were they secretly like that as well? As I always been. Villainous bunch of people that hate immigrants.

MICHAEK FANONE: No, not at all. I mean, I had very limited interactions with ICE, purposefully so, because traditionally, you know, local law enforcement and ICE didn’t interact because, and we didn’t participate in immigration enforcement because local law-enforcement agencies are charged with policing and providing public safety to all of the residents of our community.

And we have a large immigration population in Washington, D.C., and many of them are undocumented but We want to make sure that those people are reporting crimes to us. And so they have to feel safe that they’re not gonna be deported because they were a victim of a crime and they decide to call 911 or one of their relatives.

And also it benefits the whole community in that, let’s say a legal resident is a victim a crime and it happens to be an undocumented person that was a witness to that crime. But we want that witness to come forward and provide us with that information. And that’s why we don’t conduct enforcement operations with ICE.

That being said, my encounters with them were limited, mostly to passing in court, having a cup of coffee together and whatnot, but they were an investigative agency.

Typically the way that an ICE deportation worked was somebody came in contact with law enforcement, they were arrested, they were adjudicated. It was determined through that process that they were undocumented. In the federal system, if it was a felony, it was reported to. ICE, ICE would get a retainer warrant and then you know the decision would be made whether they were going to serve a sentence here in the country prior to being deported or whether they were just going to be deported immediately.

But it was a very sterile process. You didn’t see street activity conducted by ICE. I mean we used to laugh that like the ICE guys were the ones that wore khaki pants in a photo shoot all the time because they weren’t real cops. And so, and I think they probably would have been the first people to admit that to you.

Watch above via The Jim Acosta Show.