MSNBC panel erupts after Heritage prez blasts crime committed by illegal migrants: ‘We don’t use the term’
MSNBC hosts chafed at how to refer to migrants who enter the country illegally and commit crimes during a testy exchange with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts Saturday.
The liberal network’s hosts were eager to grill Roberts about Heritage’s Project 2025, an initiative intended to outline an agenda for former President Donald Trump should he win a second term. It has become something of a boogeyman enterprise among progressives.
“I’m specifically interested, as it relates, Dr. Roberts, to the deportation of immigrants in this country — just understanding sort of how it is going to work,” MSNBC anchor Alicia Menendez — the daughter of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) — began.
“When you talk about folks on the interior, how you see, a future administration utilizing the National Guard, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], police forces to deport something like 11 million people.”
Roberts said that the first objective is to “close the border,” followed by “the biggest mass deportation system ever in the history of America.”
“It is unjust and illegal and evil that more than 10 million illegal aliens have come to this country. It’s imperative that we send those people back, invite them back to come through the legal system,” he argued.
Menendez was flanked by former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and Symone Sanders-Townsend during the panel discussion.
“How do you plan to carry that out?” Sanders-Townsend pressed Roberts. “Are you talking about going door-to-door?”
“There’s going to be a lot of self-deportation,” Roberts said.
“Secondly, there are great plans using the Department of Homeland Security to return these people back to south of the border.”
“A lot of them are committing crimes, like murdering the 12-year-old girl in Houston,” Roberts later added — a reference to Jocelyn Nungaray, who was allegedly strangled to death by two Venezuelan migrants.
Follow along with The Post's reporting on Jocelyn Nungaray's murder
- The illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of murdering Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston lured the 12-year-old girl under a bridge, where they stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours, disturbing new court documents allege.
- Both Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos were seen on surveillance video entering a 7-Eleven with Jocelyn the night she was killed and before the two walked her to a bridge, where her body was later found half-naked and strangled.
- Peña, 26, and Martinez-Rangel, 21, allegedly bound Jocelyn’s hands behind her back during the brutal assault, then strangled her and dumped her body in a bayou.
- Department of Homeland Security sources said Peña crossed into El Paso, Texas, on May 28. He was released soon after his interaction with border agents.
- Jocelyn fought back against her attackers after she was lured under the bridge and assaulted — leaving scratch and bite marks on one of the illegal migrants who is accused of killing her.
- Peña was given an ankle monitor when he was released into the US after being caught at the border in May, according to Homeland Security sources. He reportedly cut off the monitor after Jocelyn’s body was found.
- Republicans slammed the White House for its “pathetic” and “shameful” statements on the killings of Jocelyn and Maryland mother of five Rachel Morin — which never mentioned they were murdered by illegal immigrants
Sanders-Townsend, who previously worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Vice President Kamala Harris, then cited a 2019 study in Texas that illegal immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime than legal residents. .
That figure ostensibly comes from the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
“What do you tell the parents of these people — those young girls that was killed [sic],” Roberts shot back. “It’s absurd.”
“What is the difference between an illegal immigrant who unfortunately engages in that activity—” Steele started to ask, before Sanders-Townsend interjected.
“I want to be clear. We don’t use the term ‘illegal.’ Undocumented individuals,” she said.
“That’s sweet,” Roberts quipped.
“They’re illegal aliens.”
“Our analysis in Texas, Georgia, and New York, shows that a preponderance of the illegals who have come in are unattached males … and the disproportionate number of them are people who are not even making any attempt to be legal,” Roberts later added.
