JD Vance Says ‘We Don’t’ Want ICE Arrests ‘To Be So Chaotic’ — While Attacking Democrats

Vice President JD Vance spoke in Minneapolis on Thursday about the ongoing anti-ICE protests in the city amid reports that federal agents are entering Americans’ homes without warrants and using other highly controversial tactics.

The superintendent of a local school district accused ICE this week of detaining a 5-year-old boy and using the child to gain entry into a home. An agent “led him to the door and directed him to knock on the door, asking to be let in, in order to see if anyone else was home — essentially using a 5-year-old as bait,” said Zena Stenvik to CNN on Thursday.

Vance took questions from reporters after his remarks and was asked, “Are you proud of how your administration is conducting this immigration crackdown here in Minnesota right now?”

“Well, I’m proud of the fact that we’re standing behind law enforcement, and I’m proud of the fact that we’re enforcing the country’s laws. But, you know, you asked a question about this five-year-old kid. I actually saw this terrible story while I was coming to Minneapolis,” Vance began, adding:

We just left Toledo, Ohio this morning for an economic messaging event. And I see this story, and I’m a father of a five-year-old, actually, a five-year-old little boy, and think to myself, “Oh my God, this is terrible. How did we arrest a five-year-old?”

Well, I do a little bit more follow-up research, and what I find is that the five-year-old was not arrested, that his dad was an illegal alien, and then when they went to arrest his illegal alien father, the father ran. So the story is that ICE detained a five-year-old. Well, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America? If the argument is that you can’t arrest people who have violated our laws because they have children, then every single parent is going to be completely given immunity from ever being the subject of law enforcement. That doesn’t make any sense. No one thinks that makes any sense.

Now, you know, there are so many of these cases like that where if you just understand the context, there have been a number of situations that I’ve looked into personally where I say, “Wait a second, we don’t want ICE arresting American citizens. They’re supposed to be enforcing the immigration laws against illegal aliens.” So then I look into it and I find out that the American citizen who was arrested took a swing at an ICE officer. You can’t have that happen. And of course they have to defend themselves and of course, they have the right to detain somebody who assaults a law enforcement officer.

Now this is my point: Do we want these things to happen? Do we want these arrests to be so chaotic? No, we don’t. These guys want it least of all. But if we had a little cooperation from local and state officials—or excuse me, from local state officials—I think the chaos would go way down in this community.

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!