Transcript:
Tracy Sabol: Trump’s crime crackdown spreading nationwide from our nation’s capital to Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois. And now we are learning that officers have begun their immigration sweeps in Charlotte, North Carolina. Joining us now is Raymond Lopez, the alderman of the city of Chicago in the 15th Ward. Also with us is Betsy Brantner Smith. She is a spokesperson for the National Police Association and a retired Chicago-area police officer.
Thank you both for being here today. We appreciate it. According to a CBS report, the Trump administration is preparing for major operations, not only in Charlotte, but also in New Orleans, with special operations teams and possibly even armored vehicles. Our correspondent Joe Mueller spoke to Congressman Tim Moore about these plans. Let’s watch.
Congressman Tim Moore: I guess your reaction to the word that the border patrol is on their way to Charlotte. What they’re trying to do, as I understand, is to try to really go in and deal with some very dangerous individuals who are in our community. And as someone who represents Charlotte, I want safety and security for everyone here. And the fact that folks on the left are demonizing and attacking law enforcement officials, they should be ashamed of that. They should be supporting these folks.
Tracy Sabol: Alderman Lopez, I’m gonna go to you with this one. What do you think of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on migrant crime? Do you think they’re doing a good job?
Alderman Raymond Lopez: I think any attempt to trace you to reduce our stats and to help bring safety and security to our neighborhood should be heralded and applauded by Democrats and Republicans throughout the United States. As we saw with Operation Midway Blitz here in the city of Chicago, even though crime stats were already trending in the right direction. We’ve seen where a significant at least a five or in some cases 10 percentage point difference in reduction was observable. I think in no small part thanks to the efforts of our border enforcement agents and other federal agencies that were here supporting the Chicago Police Department. No one should be saying that we always brought it down just enough.
We don’t need to go any further. Thankfully, Donald Trump moved forward and continued going down that path, and the results are undeniable. What will come next? We will see if we can maintain it, but I think, to the congressman’s point, yes, we should be thankful that our agents are out here working.
Tracy Sabol: Yeah. And Governor Josh Stein, he put out a statement that reads in part this. He said we should all focus on arresting violent criminals and drug traffickers. Unfortunately, that’s not always what we have seen with ICE and border patrol agents in Chicago and elsewhere around the country. Betsy, what is your response to that?
Sgt. Betsy Smith (ret): Well, what he’s responding to are so many of these videos where people, the media, activists are claiming that police officers did this wrong and did that wrong, then we come to find out that these are all lies. The media narrative and the narrative from some of our politicians, including in Illinois, JB Pritzker, Brandon Johnson, they’re lying about ICE agents and their operation. And because of their lies, these agents are getting attacked. Remember, ICE agents attack attacks are up 8000%.
That’s insane. These cops are just trying to do their jobs and we need to get everyone who is here illegally deported. We’re starting with the worst of the worst, but sometimes others get caught up in that net. The way to stop this is to self-deport like 1,000,000 people have already done.
Tracy Sabol: Yeah. And as we know, President Trump, has committed to tackling crime in the Windy City for weeks now. Last month, his administration started conducting Operation Midway Blitz, which we know has seen some really great results. We talked about that. In fact, DHS data shows that since the beginning of the initiative, carjackings, robberies, shootings, and homicides are all down.
Alderman Lopez, what do you think of the job that Operation Midway Blitz is doing in your city of Chicago, and talk to us about the difference that you’ve seen?
Alderman Raymond Lopez: Well, what concerns me about Operation Midway Blitz is that I wish it were always the worst of the worst. And we know that there have been plenty of collateral captures; roughly 60 to 70% of those that were taken by our federal agents were not the intended targets. We’re basically undocumented individuals who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when the feds came knocking. And that concerns me because at the start of this, what we knew was that there were 2,000 federally vetted dangers to not only our city but to our country, and I’m not sure we got them out. All of this could have been avoided with the collateral captures, by the way, if we had amended our sanctuary city laws at the state and county and city level and offered to work with our federal partners when we arrested somebody committing certain heinous, dangerous criminal acts and did a peaceful transfer of custody.
Unfortunately, our far left politicians, led by Johnson and Pritzker, chose to go a very different route, and this is where we wind up being today. But there still are threats in our communities that we must contend with.
Tracy Sabol: Alright. We gotta leave it right there. Thank you both so much for joining us today. We really appreciate Audubon Raymond Lopez and Betsy Brantner Smith. Always a pleasure to be with you.
Sgt. Betsy Smith (ret): Thanks for asking us