DHS defends ICE ID checks amid Minnesota stop videos (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Secretary Noem also told reporters yesterday that ICE may ask people to quote validate their identity when asked about Americans carrying proof of citizenship. Can you clarify what exactly that means? Do American citizens as of now need to carry their passports or other immigration documents to show that they're citizens?

[00:00:19] Speaker 2: I am so glad you asked this question because I think that there's a lot of confusion there about about this. We have incredibly targeted immigration enforcement operations. So what's happening there is there is reasonable suspicion. If somebody is in the vicinity of this operation of this target, then they could be asked for their identification. We've been vindicated by this, by the Supreme Court, September of 2025. You all saw a case out of Los Angeles where they said we can use reasonable suspicion. I think I've seen a lot on this network and other places where they're talking about this is racially based. Absolutely not. Racial animus is no place in DHS and is, of course, not used. We're using what is protected under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

[00:01:00] Speaker 3: All right, let's dive a little bit deeper into that. I want to play this video of a recent incident in Minnesota that has received attention.

[00:01:08] Speaker 1: Do you have an ID on you, ma'am?

[00:01:10] Speaker 4: I don't need an ID to walk around in my city.

[00:01:13] Speaker 1: Okay, do you have some ID then, please? If not, we're going to put you in the vehicle. We're going to ID you.

[00:01:18] Speaker 4: I am a U.S. citizen. I don't need to carry around an ID in my home.

[00:01:23] Speaker 1: Well, where were you born?

[00:01:25] Speaker 4: This is my home.

[00:01:26] Speaker 1: Where were you born?

[00:01:27] Speaker 4: Minneapolis is my home.

[00:01:30] Speaker 3: So that video was filmed by a woman who, as you heard, said she is a U.S. citizen. Why exactly was she stopped? Was there reasonable suspicion, which is a legal bar, as you noted, that a crime was committed in that situation? And why was he asking her, where are you born? Like, what was he basing that on?

[00:01:44] Speaker 2: Sure, so either this is, and I haven't seen this video before, so there could be two circumstances here. Either he, this is a targeted operation and she's around the vicinity of it, around the target. There's reasonable suspicion because there might be a descriptor or she could be 5'6 and they're looking for somebody who's 5'6. That could be part of it. They're looking for somebody, that could be part of it. The other piece of it is it could be, I don't know if she was obstructing law enforcement, if she was assaulting law enforcement prior to this, but they either had those Title VIII authorities under the U.S. Code 1357 or they had that reasonable suspicion.

[00:02:19] Speaker 3: But what do you say to those who watch that and other videos that they're seeing themselves? I mean, this is not just the mainstream media. This is, people are seeing these videos and they're concerned and they're concerned that a place like Minnesota is turning into a police state and they're going up to U.S. citizens asking for ID and, you know, using tactics.

[00:02:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there's a lot of fear mongering going on, I think, by the media.

[00:02:42] Speaker 3: Hold on, let me just correct you right there. They're watching these videos and using their independence of mind. It's not the media.

[00:02:49] Speaker 2: No, actually it is the media and we're seeing it time and time again by saying things like the police state. What we're seeing is rampant violence against our law enforcement, highly coordinated. We have our legal authorities. When individuals see videos like that, you have to ask the question, was this individual obstructing law enforcement, which is a federal crime? Were they assaulting law enforcement, which is a felony? Were any of those instances occurring before this video was cut? Because you saw a very short cut and that's what I'm talking about the media.

[00:03:17] Speaker 3: But you have to look at the polling, right? This isn't the media. This is actual polling that says, hey, I like what ICE is doing in terms of its target. We want to get criminals off the street who don't belong in the country. But 51% say ICE makes cities less safe. Just 31% say it makes cities more safe. On the Renee Good case you brought up, 26% of Americans viewed the shooting as an appropriate use of force, while 56% called it an inappropriate use of force. So are you willing to consider in some cases ICE has gone too far and is losing American support?

[00:03:50] Speaker 2: Pamela, in the last five weeks, we have arrested 2,500 criminal legal aliens off of the streets of Minneapolis. If I can finish, if I can make my point, I appreciate your having me, but I do want to be able to make my point. The point of the matter is I have not seen CNN cover who some of those individuals are. An individual from Ecuador who he murdered his three-month-old son. An individual who is perpetuating human slavery and human trafficking. Scores and scores of murders, child pedophiles. Why does the media not talk about that? We continue to see that people love to demonize law enforcement, vilify them as they're facing a thousand percent increase in assaults against them. And yet we're not talking about the great work that they're doing on the ground. The fact that they are risking their lives day in and day out to get these criminals off the ground. Gang members, known as suspected terrorists. These are all the people that we've arrested in Minneapolis. And DHS has, and Secretary Noem, President Trump, have done a phenomenal job of trying to give people transparency on who we are arresting. And yet we're standing here talking about re-litigating cases over and over again.

[00:04:52] Speaker 3: Well, you assume someone's killed by an ICE officer. That's fair. I talked about, I talked about the polls. It's a fair question to say, are you losing American support? But Wolf, I want to let you, please.

[00:05:00] Speaker 1: No one supports attacking or killing a law enforcement officer. Nobody supports that.

[00:05:05] Speaker 2: But if I may say, you all have really laying the feet at that ICE enforcement officer. We said that this was domestic. I said this earlier in the investigation. We said that this was domestic terrorism for a reason. This individual used a deadly weapon against our ICE law enforcement officer. That is and will be charged. In any of the cases, we saw 15 of these cases over the past week alone in Minneapolis. Those will be charged as domestic terrorism.

[00:05:28] Speaker 1: When she called this 37-year-old mother of three who was driving that car a domestic terrorist, that really was outrageous.

[00:05:35] Speaker 2: We said it was an act of domestic terrorism. In no way is that outrageous. What we saw on the ground there, she had been stalking and harassing law enforcement throughout the morning. And then she went on to use her car as a deadly weapon.

[00:05:48] Speaker 1: She was driving by after dropping off her little six-year-old boy at school.

[00:05:51] Speaker 2: That's just simply not true. I have the facts on the ground. I mean, if you look at it, for the hours before... Do you have more information you can release to give the public a better understanding? If I can give you the facts of what happened that morning. At 9.30 a.m. Central time, this is where that incident occurred in Minneapolis. This individual for hours before had been stalking and harassing law enforcement, impeding operations. At the time of that incident, our law enforcement approached this individual's vehicle as she was blocking in our law enforcement. That is a federal crime. They asked her to get out of the car to stop obstructing law enforcement. You saw from the video that her partner had been walking around harassing the law enforcement officer. Our officer was in front of her. She gunned the vehicle. And that's when things turned dangerous and deadly. If you don't listen to lawful commands of federal law enforcement, if you use your vehicle as a weapon, that is absolutely an act of domestic terrorism.

[00:06:41] Speaker 3: Hold on really quick. I mean, you just mentioned he stepped in front of the vehicle and there is no confirmation. I mean, there have been different analysis of this vehicle. And of course, we would love more facts to fill in the picture. But she's also turning the wheel and he did step in front of the vehicle as part of this. Is that part of the training for ICE agents during an encounter with the vehicle?

[00:07:01] Speaker 2: When you're trying to be, when they're being blocked, when you're being impeded. The cars were going by. Cars were being, you're not seeing the full video. There are cars behind this individual that could not get through. So again, we're talking about manipulative editing and only showing, we're only showing part of the, Pamela, there's a very simple. We welcome any more evidence that you can release to the public. There is a very simple solution here. Tim Walz and Mayor Frey should let us into their jails. Those 1400 individuals, those criminal legal aliens who have already had their due process, let us in those jails. Let us take those murderers, those rapists, those child pedophiles out. That would simply solve the solution. Work with state and local law enforcement. That is what we're asking. Down in Florida, there's been 40,000 arrests of criminal legal aliens. We've seen peace. We've seen public safety. That's what we should be seeing across the nation.

[00:07:52] Speaker 1: Tricia, I want you to listen and watch what your boss, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Tricia Noem, excuse me, Secretary Noem said yesterday alongside another video of a recent encounter in Minnesota. Listen to this.

[00:08:07] Speaker 5: The officers that we have out there are very highly trained and skilled, specific for the operations that they're doing. They're utilizing the most gifted individuals on these operations to go out and to do enforcement because many times if they're going after murderers.

[00:08:23] Speaker 1: And we also saw that video of a woman being pulled out of her car as she was trying to simply go to the doctor. Is that what? That is, she was not going to the doctor. Is what you're seeing there, are these the officers are trained to do? They cut off her seatbelt. They dragged her out of the car and took her out.

[00:08:39] Speaker 2: This individual was actually arrested because she was time and time again impeding law enforcement officers. Again, a small snippet of this video. So she was an agitator, intentionally, again, trying to impede federal law enforcement officers, which is a federal crime and is a felony.

[00:08:56] Speaker 3: How do you know for certainty, though, that she wasn't just caught up in the protests and the traffic and the chaos and was trying to get to, how do you know that for certainty?

[00:09:02] Speaker 2: She was doing this time and time again, over and over and over again. We've talked to federal law enforcement on the ground. We talked to their supervisors. In this case, we knew exactly what happened here and she'll be charged as such.

[00:09:12] Speaker 3: I want to ask you about the recruitment. You talked about the training they get. There's an ICE recruiting poster and it read, quote, we'll have our home again. That's gone viral. That phrase is cited as having ties to white nationalist groups in the U.S. and Canada and a database of symbols maintained by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. I want to let you explain that. And also, even if this is not intentional, do you denounce this if this could be seen as a dog whistle to white supremacists?

[00:09:40] Speaker 2: We'll have our home again is now a white nationalist dog whistle. What is that a dog whistle to? By the way, I had a feeling you would ask me about this. Yeah, I want to let you explain. There's plenty of poems. It's gotten a lot of attention. Yes. And you know, there's no reason that we should be manufacturing outrage. There are plenty of... It's not meant... It is actually. There are plenty of policy disagreements we should be having. And I really believe we should be having. Manufacturing fake outreach is not that. There are plenty of poems. There are plenty of songs. There are plenty of books with the same title. And the fact that people would like to cherry pick something of white nationalism to make some sort of connection to DHS law enforcement. Well, it's no wonder we're seeing such vast rampant assaults against our law enforcement. It's no wonder Secretary Nome is facing so many threats against her life. I am, Tom Holman across the board is because of garbage like this and people choosing to manufacture outreach. I think it's quite frankly embarrassing.

[00:10:36] Speaker 3: Well, I wanted to give you the chance to respond again. This came from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Thank you very much for coming on, Trisha McLaughlin. We appreciate your time to give DHS a side of the story. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

[00:10:47] Speaker 1: Thanks very much for coming in.