Obstructing justice was a serious crime but CNN didn’t seem to care when they took time on Monday’s CNN This Morning to whine about agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) getting aggressive with liberals who tried to interfere with arrests. Host Audie Cornish and guest Garrett Graff, a columnist for The Washington Post, huffed about everything from recruitment to falsely suggesting they don’t use warrants.
“[W]e keep talking about what it's going to look like as ICE raises the number and recruits, the number of people in the agency. Can you talk about the role of these videos, how citizens are starting to affect how ICE is seen?” Cornish asked.
Graff touted those “random members of the public trying to step in” to interfere with arrests by supposedly trying to “document what is happening.” He clutched his pearls about how ICE was, “actually get more aggressive and more violent and more brutal in their policing tactics, which is exactly the wrong direction that one would hope a healthy law enforcement agency was heading.”
He lauded how it was leading to ICE “losing the sort of support of the public and the moral legitimacy of the American people.” But warned, “That’s a very dangerous situation for a law enforcement agency in a democracy to be in.”
What was actually happening in many of those situations was that liberal extremists were trying to interfere and hinder ICE’s ability to arrest and deport criminal aliens, and those with lawful deportation orders.
Cornish tried to paint a dystopian image of how ICE operated; whining about they follow local police around to “snatch people” off the street. She suggested – without evidence – that they didn’t have warrants for the people they apprehend, which Graff played along with:
CORNISH: We talked about them sort of trailing D.C. police vehicles. But in terms of them being in all these unmarked vehicles, being able to kind of snatch people. You heard that person saying -- asking about a warrant. Do those things matter under ICE's sort of rules of engagement?
GRAFF: Well, in theory, they are supposed to. In theory, due process and civil rights apply in all law enforcement situations across the country. That's a cornerstone, a bedrock of American – America's legal system in a free and open democracy.
After years of the liberal media demanding people wear masks or be barred from society in the early 2020s, suddenly they were a serious problem for Graff.
“The challenge is, and worries me about these videos, is the extent to which ICE is blocking itself from that public accountability. You know, you see them increasingly moving about the country masked,” he bellyached. “You see them not identifying themselves clearly with law enforcement credentials.”
Adding: “So, these are agents who are operating as anonymously as possible, even for their own agency.”
It’s been noted time and time again, that ICE agents were taking extra precautions to protect their identities because liberal extremists have been targeting them and their families for retribution.
Apparently, CNN and Graff didn’t care if they met that fate.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
CNN This Morning
August 25, 2025
6:38:05 a.m. Eastern(…)
AUDIE CORNISH: And, Garrett, we keep talking about what it's going to look like as ICE raises the number and recruits, the number of people in the agency. Can you talk about the role of these videos, how citizens are starting to affect how ICE is seen?
GARRETT GRAFF: Yeah, I think one of the things that's really disturbing to me about the recent behavior that we've seen from ICE is that it's clear that they are losing the sort of support of the public and the moral legitimacy of the American people. And that's a very dangerous situation for a law enforcement agency in a democracy to be in.
And it strikes me that as they certainly understand that they are under this increased scrutiny from the public, that you have sort of random members of the public trying to step in, document what is happening. You're seeing ICE actually get more aggressive and more violent and more brutal in their policing tactics, which is exactly the wrong direction that one would hope a healthy law enforcement agency was heading.
CORNISH: What's different about the control of ICE, how it's run compared to other law enforcement agencies? We talked about them sort of trailing D.C. police vehicles. But in terms of them being in all these unmarked vehicles, being able to kind of snatch people. You heard that person saying -- asking about a warrant. Do those things matter under ICE's sort of rules of engagement?
GRAFF: Well, in theory, they are supposed to. In theory, due process and civil rights apply in all law enforcement situations across the country. That's a cornerstone, a bedrock of American – America's legal system in a free and open democracy.
The challenge is, and worries me about these videos, is the extent to which ICE is blocking itself from that public accountability. You know, you see them increasingly moving about the country masked. You see them not identifying themselves clearly with law enforcement credentials.
And one of the things that actually really troubles me about a lot of these videos is, federal agents, federal officers, in high risk situations, they -- they don't wear name tags, but they have unique identifier codes that go on their tactical vests, on their uniforms, that would help identify them internally in the aftermath of an internal investigation, for instance.
You saw Justice Department officials, prison guards, for instance, wearing these types of identifiers in the George Floyd protests when they were called to D.C. in 2020. It's really notable to me that ICE is not wearing, in at least many of the videos that I'm seeing, those unique identifier codes that would even make them accountable internally to internal use of force investigations. So, these are agents who are operating as anonymously as possible, even for their own agency.
CORNISH: That's Garrett Graff, journalist and historian. I'm sure we'll have you back to talk more about this. Thank you, Garrett.
GRAFF: Any time, Audie.
