Markwayne Mullin clashes with reporter over Trump’s deportation push: ‘Should we not enforce laws?’

WASHINGTON, DC: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin clashed with a reporter during a news conference on Monday, August 31, after she questioned the Trump administration’s push to deport undocumented immigrants, including those she said have “no criminal convictions.”

Mullin is leading a massive nationwide immigration enforcement and deportation push.

Mullin lashes out at reporter over non-criminal deportation question

Mullin scoffed at the journalist and told her all illegal immigrants have committed a crime.

“Should we not enforce laws?” he asked the female reporter.

“I said earlier… regardless if you’re a criminal or not, if you entered this country and you cheated —  you didn’t come in the legal way because there are people who enter this country every single day legally — does that not make you a criminal?” Mullin shouted.

“Did you not break the nation’s laws? We don’t pick and choose which law we’re enforcing, we’re going to enforce the law regardless.”

He then asked the reporter if she was “glad” ICE had arrested illegal immigrants who did have a prior criminal record.

“Do you want to live among those criminals?” Mullin continued.

Mullin’s heated exchange with the reporter comes a few days after The New York Times reported that illegal immigrants with “a past violent criminal conviction fell to less than four percent” in July.

Illegal deportation has been Trump’s key political objective

President Donald Trump recently touted that his administration has done a tremendous job on the issue the public doesn’t seem to remember or care about it now.

“Even my speechwriters, they say, ‘Sir, nobody wants to hear about the border anymore. You’ve done it, it’s an incredible job you’ve done, but nobody wants to hear about it,’” Trump said earlier this month. “I should’ve taken a couple of years to do it.”

Securing the Southern border and deporting illegal immigrants was a key aspect of his 2024 presidential campaign.

Mullin accuses reporter of warping truth in fresh attack

On Tuesday, Sept 1, Mullin again pushed back when the reporter said there had been an “increasing number” of children being rounded up by immigration agents, accusing her of misrepresenting the facts.

“We’re not targeting children, like you wanna use that. We target the parents,” he said.

“If the parents have children and we’re deporting them, we let the parent decide if they want to be deported with their children, or leave it with a trusted, vetted individual that we know aren’t going to traffic the individuals. We do something quite different than the Biden Administration.”