MSNBC pundit Anand Giridharadas on Tuesday compared Immigrant and Customs Enforcement’s deportations to "Gestapo raids," though polls have repeatedly shown that most Americans support the agency's efforts.
"When you start having Gestapo raids in America, and we start becoming a country where, as in East Germany, a knock on the door is the thing people are thinking about instead of the brilliant idea they want to go create, then we are moving very, very far from the president worrying about what regular people need," Giridharadas said on Morning Joe. "He is distracting people with this flurry of activity. But none of this, none of these images you’re seeing, are going to make your life better."
Yet several surveys have shown a majority of Americans support what Giridharadas called a distraction. CNN data reporter Henry Enten on Wednesday highlighted New York Times, ABC News, CBS News, and Marquette Law School polls showing as much. In the case of Marquette, 64 percent said they somewhat or strongly favor "deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home countries."
"So what you’re seeing, essentially, here is a very clear indication that a majority of Americans … do, in fact, want to deport all immigrants who are here illegally," Enten said.
"People want less people coming into the country," CNN News Central host Kate Bolduan said.
"Exactly," Enten responded.
President Donald Trump kicked off his second administration with military deportation flights to Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. He also sent 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border and conducted major ICE raids. On Monday alone, ICE arrested nearly 1,200 illegal immigrants. The day prior in Colorado, the Drug Enforcement Administration detained at least 41 illegal immigrants, including suspected members of the Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua.