CNN has had plenty to say lately on President Trump’s recent executive orders regarding enforcement of America’s immigration laws. On Monday’s showing of CNN This Morning, host Kasie Hunt interviewed senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, who offered one of her ridiculous views on the subject. Kayyem’s take on the matter was pretty simple: the sacrificial victim of the President’s power grab would be, simply, anyone who happens not to be white, or even, better yet, anyone who happens not to resemble Trump himself, or, at least, his own family.
Hunt immediately sets the tone at the beginning of the discussion, making no mention whatsoever of any compelling reasons why it might be a good idea for a country to have a functioning system to monitor who crossed its borders, and instead dwelled entirely on two individual instances where immigration officials reportedly made embarrassing mistakes.
She also made much of the fact that, as she said, “there is guidance to these law enforcement officials to wear camera-ready uniforms so that they can generate more media attention,” the clear implication being that the purpose of the president’s order is to play for the cameras.
Kayyem took it from there, saying that the policy on immigration enforcement now seemed to be “Just go out and get people. So, what does that mean? It means people who don’t look like- essentially, white Americans.” “These are overboard,” she said of ICE raids and arrests, adding that, “they’re sweeping in people- who are, you know, brown, black, Native American, until they can prove otherwise.”
She also continued the theme of Trump apparently taking the action out of a desire for publicity, calling the recent deportations “reality TV immigration enforcement.” “This is the performative aspect of immigration enforcement,” she said, “and the impact is, of course, on Americans that don’t look like the Trump family, essentially.”
Kayyem then went on to make an assertion that would boggle the minds of millions of people, when she assured viewers that “Donald Trump inherited what we would call a relatively peaceful border.” She did concede (how gracious of her) that she’s not actually “pretending like there were zero border crossings,” under the Biden administration, but according to her, there was really nothing much to see there; certainly nothing that would warrant any changes to what was already being done.
So, according to a senior CNN national security analyst, there was never any real problem on the border, Trump discontinued the policies he inherited because, as Kayyem puts it, “It was working,” and he needed a way got get himself some publicity, so he conveniently created a crisis, and decided to just randomly single out any American who happened not to look like him as an example to the world of what he is capable of?
It certainly seems like CNN had learned nothing from being called out as liars in their defamation verdict.
The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:
CNN This Morning01/27/255:46 AM
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KASIE HUNT: Joining us now, Juliette Kayyem, who is also a CNN national security analyst.
Juliette, good morning. So obviously we have two questions here, right? We have the border itself, people trying to come into the country who aren’t already here. Then we have people who live here already- have crossed the border.
I actually want to start there before we circle back to your piece, and particularly what we’re learning from Navajo Nation officials, because- while we know that the Trump team wants this to be actively seen by the media, to the point that we’re reporting here, that there is guidance to these law enforcement officials to wear camera-ready uniforms so that they can generate more media attention. Um, they also are clearly doing things like, in the case of this, Navajo Nation. I mean, the- talk about people who are American citizens, right- getting swept up in this.
JULIETTE KAYYEM (CNN national security analyst): Yes. This is called the interior enforcement part of- Trump’s agenda. The mass deportations, interior enforcement- is- has to be regulated by law and by practiced by ICE.
What seems to have happened now is it’s just sort of go out and get people. So, what does that mean? It means people who don’t look like- essentially, white Americans. And so what you’re seeing is these broad sweeps. People then say, “no, no, no, I’m an American.” In one case, we have a reporting that someone said, “I’m a Puerto Rican,” and the ICE agent didn’t know that that person- that Puerto Ricans are, in fact, Americans. And lots of mistakes are being made. These are overbroad, and they’re sweeping in people- who are, you know, brown, black, Native American, until they can prove otherwise.
This is an un- This is unregulated immigration enforcement. This is the free-for-all that Donald Trump complained about during his campaign. There will be lots of lawsuits. There’ll be lots of actions against ICE agents.
But right now, what Trump wants is essentially what one might call reality TV immigration enforcement. We know, for example, in Chicago, Dr. Phil, the reality TV star, the talk show host was present and taking pictures during them. This is the performative aspect of immigration enforcement. And the impact is, of course, on Americans that don’t look like the Trump family, essentially.
HUNT: Juliet, in the piece you talk about not interior enforcement, but rather the border itself, how that is- is managed. We do know that Donald Trump has surged troops to the border, or at least ordered them there. Explain a little bit about what you’re arguing in this new Atlantic piece.
KAYYEM: So Donald Trump inherited, despite all the politics- I just look at the numbers, right- Donald Trump inherited what we would call a relatively peaceful border- I’m not pretending like there were zero border crossings- but there were about 46,000 illegal crossings in October before he won, at least, the presidency.
He- Donald Trump had more immigration crossings than President Obama. And President Biden was doing better than President Trump in his last months of office, as president, Biden began to hunker down a little bit more seriously about asylum relief. CBP One was a way to do that. It was an org- a regulated process. People had to sign up before they came to the United States. They had to present themselves to a formal point of entry. They just couldn’t show up anywhere at the border, which had been the previous rule, and it regulated the number of people that could get through.
It was working. It actually was started by the Trump administration, but because it was working, Donald Trump and- stopped it. I mean, essentially now we have no formalized asylum process. And so people will just present themselves anywhere. And then you begin the legal process. It’s a huge burden on our courts, a huge burden on our immigration officials.
But it is the kind of chaos, the kind of lack of regulation that benefits Donald Trump’s performative aspects of immigration enforcement, which I think we- I think we just have to pierce the numbers and see that a lot of this is performative. His numbers are no better or worse this first week than they were for President Biden.
HUNT: All right. Juliette Kayyem for us this morning. Juliette, always grateful to have you. Thanks very much for being on the show.
