Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) accused President Donald Trump of sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents out on “unconstitutional missions.”
Partial transcript as follows:
RADDATZ: Tom Homan — he took over in Minnesota, as you know, and he’s now saying it will be different than it was with Greg Bovino. They will do these targeted raids against people they know that are there, that they think are there illegally or have committed a crime.
SHAPIRO: To me, it’s less important who’s in charge. What’s more important is that these individuals are being sent out on what I think are compromised and unconstitutional missions, as we saw in Minneapolis. The direction’s coming from the President of the United States.
RADDATZ: If there’s a surge of ICE agents into Pennsylvania, what do you do?
SHAPIRO: We are prepared. I will tell you, governors prepare for all kinds of emergencies — for a weather emergency or, God forbid, a terrorist incident or a shooting, awful things like that. We are now preparing, should the federal government, against our will, deploy federal officials into our communities.
It was interesting in the governor’s meeting, one of the governors asked the president, what did you learn from Minnesota and what happened there? And the president said, in the way he says things, I learned we’re only going to go to places where we’re wanted, where people say please and thank you.
We do not want that kind of chaos in our communities in Pennsylvania, so don’t come. But if you come, we are prepared to address it.
RADDATZ: Our latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 70 percent of Democrats support abolishing ICE. Do you support abolishing ICE?
SHAPIRO: I think what’s clear is that ICE is not working. What’s clear is that they’ve been engaged in unconstitutional practices, and that needs to be fixed. I think the first step is what the Congress of the United States is doing right now to try and put some controls on that, and I want to see those controls be put into effect. Again, I’m not —
RADDATZ: But controls, not abolish.
SHAPIRO: I’m not going to get caught up in labels here. It’s what I said to you —
RADDATZ: It’s not a label really. It’s, do you get rid of them all together, or do you try to do it better?
SHAPIRO: I think what is clear is that the manner in which they are being directed is a manner that directs them to go violate people’s constitutional rights, and that is not something I support.
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