SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — We are getting a different perspective of Tuesday’s ICE raids in New York City.
As Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem worked side-by-side with federal agents, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett was there.
As CBS News cameras followed Kristi Noem through the streets of New York, the new Secretary of Homeland Security was making sure people around the world saw what was happening.
“As Kristi Noem showed yesterday, she’s very adept at posting things about social media. She has her own account, and she portrays herself doing these things. We wanted to be independent journalists watching them go on recording the information, comparing it to existing data, contextualizing it for the audience and telling the full story,” Garrett said.
In his one-on-one interview with Noem, Garrett asked for her thoughts about taking a news crew along on this kind of mission.
“The Trump administration wants cameras present at this early stage of the administration to capture what it looks like for these immigration actions to continue. They want people to see that they are doing things differently,” Garrett said.
“It’s not a spectacle. This is our nation’s law enforcement, judicial process. The scales of justice are equally applied to everybody. We want transparency on this,” Noem said in the interview with Garrett.
This was not Garrett’s first time going behind the scenes with law enforcement, but he said this experience was different.
“There were 90 federal agents in the briefing room when we were briefed on the day’s events. When I was with Secretary Noem, there were about 35 or 40 federal agents so much larger footprint, a lot more equipment, a lot more tactical gear, a lot more preparation,” Garrett said.
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Garrett says the DEA, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service were all involved. Together, they arrested 20 people in four hours. 12 had criminal records. Eight did not.
Garrett says authorities want to make 500 arrests in New York this week.
He says it’s a lofty goal.
“If you’re going to take those resources, you can do that on a day-by-day basis, but can you do that for six months? Can you do that for a year? That is a huge question because if the administration is going to reach the numbers it has promised the country, up to a million deportations in one year, you’re going to need all these other resources taken off other jobs to assist in enforcement actions from immigration officials. That’s going to be hard. That’s going to be really, really hard to achieve,” Garrett said.
Garrett says that the eight undocumented immigrants arrested without a criminal history would not have been arrested under the Biden administration.
He also mentioned that Vice President J.D. Vance thinks the U.S. can deport up to a million people
The highest number of people deported was 409,000 in 2012 under Barack Obama. The highest Trump administration number was 267,000.
