demonize immigrants, undermine what we know, this is a country built by immigrants that were stronger because people all over the world come to america to build a better life for themselves and their family. we re all immigrants to america. this really does expose the president s real objective here, and that s to demonize communities of color, to demonize immigrants, to make it difficult for people to come to america. and he s betraying the great history of our country. but we see this as part of ongoing efforts to demonize immigrants because he thinks it plays to his base and is advantageous. it follows the raids we saw in recent days in mississippi, acting commissioner of customs and border patrol defended raids on sunday saying illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. how do you respond? well, i think what we all want of course is comprehensive immigration reform that gives a path to citizenship. we passed legislation to protect
should be able to start contracting and i would imagine within the next couple weeks you should see some easing, a little bit of that. but you re still going to see this pressure on the population and i don t discount it. i ve been down there. i ve seen detention facilities. it s not really a great place. but don t forget, you also have - we haven t disincentiveized anyone to come. the real crisis will persist with all these people paying $4,000 in guatemala, that s a down payment. they get brought up here and we place them throughout the country, many times with cartel affiliates who will continue to exploit these people. so it will continue to be humanitarian crisis of magnitude that this country has never seen. in fact, perhaps the world has never seen. arthel: you have mark morgan, who the president just installed as acting director of i.c.e. earlier this month. then as of two days ago, that is now the acting commissioner of
delays, there s something inappropriate or foul, aren t you at least somewhat relieved they re looking into it. i guess so. sometimes we worry that these looking into, these committees, these commissions and research are cover for something else. we ll see. thank you for watching velshi & ruhle. we ll see you tomorrow from miami where the big debate will take place. stephanie is on her way there. i have another show to do. i ll be here at 3:00. we ll interview two presidential contenders while we re there, andrew yang and john hickenlooper. and i ll be interviewing mayor pete buttigieg. right now kasie hunt picks up our coverage. thank you very much. good afternoon. i m kasie hunt in for katy tur. 2:00 p.m. here in washington. we begin with breaking news. the acting commissioner of customs and border patrol has announced he ll be stepping down from his post. john sanders broke the news in a letter to employees today just after his agency announced that
this, about the behind the scenes that you have, some insight into all of this. what are you hearing about the white house discussions on the border wall funding? specifically from that wednesday meeting that was inside the situation room. i just confirmed with my contact at customs and border patrol that during the wednesday meeting between the president and the republican and democratic leadership, the secretary of homeland security nielsen began a briefing on border security in which she claimed she had 98% coverage of a particular security tool. unfortunately the commissioner of customs and border patrol had testified in the senate a few weeks earlier that that number was actually 17%. when confronted with that reality, the commissioner had to confirm what he testified under oath to the senate and abruptly trump canceled the briefings, and i m told that the commissioner was roundly castigated for not lying to
the commissioner of customs and border patrol says agents will stop referring families for prosecution. families will be released with a court date. that means the zero tolerance policy is over and you are back to the catch and release program. the president attacked that program. it is primary day in five states. colorado, maryland and new york, oklahoma and utah vote. among the notable races, mitt romney is likely to win the seat along with mike kennedy. and in new york, michael grimm is fighting to get his old seat back after doing time in federal prison for tax evasion. oklahoma voters with a ballot measure to make their s the 30th state to legalize medical marijuana. there are runoffs in mississippi and south carolina. the president was in south carolina last night to back incumbent governor henry mcmaster. he was forced into a runoff by his republican challenger businessman john warren.