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GOP congressman worried that if ICE arrests non-criminals, the ‘left-wing’ press will cover it

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) expressed no concern for the families; just the coverage.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) is fine with mass raids and deportation, but worried about the media coverage.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) is fine with mass raids and deportation, but worried about the media coverage. (Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call)

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) is very concerned that if President Donald Trump goes forward with his threatened mass immigration raids, people might see non-criminal immigrants being rounded up. He does not seem to care about the implications of rounding up non-criminal immigrants.

On Fox News on Monday morning, Norman was asked about Trump’s claim that he delayed massive planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids for two weeks. He backed both the “consequences” of the president “rightfully” deporting undocumented immigrants and the president’s patience with the congressional Democrats who requested the delay. “He’s doing the right thing,” the South Carolina Republican argued.

Co-host Jillian Mele noted, that according to ICE’s Fiscal Year 2018 numbers, 90% of deportees “had criminal convictions of pending criminal charges.” Norman responded by warning that if the raids begin, the media might cover the other 10%.

“What they’ll do is, if [Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is] disingenuous like the Democrats have been in the past, they’ll coordinate with the left-wing fake news and they’ll have — show families being deported who are not the law-breakers, like Jillian had mentioned.”

Norman did not express any qualms about these families being torn apart — just that it might garner press coverage.

“But, again, these people had their day in court and they’ve got to go back and it’s consequences, consequences for breaking the laws in America, and he’s exactly right, the two weeks is the deadline,” Norman said.

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Last year, Norman suggested that it is fine for the Trump administration to detain asylum-seekers indefinitely because 9/11 happened. “In today’s world, we got 3,000 Americans dead from 9/11,” he explained. “We’ve got threats, we’ve got shootings, we’ve got issues that we got to address. I’m for the American people. We need to take care of our citizens first instead of just having complete open borders.”