Secy Noem completely made up story about cannibal immigrant Report

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told a story multiple times last year about immigration officials removing a man from the country who was a cannibal. Let's take a look. Jesse, by you calling these guys bad hombres, they really are. I was talking to a U.S. marshal just yesterday, and he was talking about the fact that they were deporting a plane load of illegals, and one of them was a cannibal. And he kind of said it offhanded, and I said to him, what do you mean it was a cannibal? Well, we put him on the plane, put him in his seat, and he started to eat his own arms. He was such a deranged individual. This is the kind of people that President Trump is getting off of our streets. When he got back to his seat and put another individual in the seat close to him, he said he literally was eating his own arms, that for him, that is what he did. He called himself a cannibal, ate other people, and ate himself. Well, they had to take him off of the flight and get him medical attention, and then he went back into the system. The other day I was talking to some marshals that have been partnering with ICE. They said that they had detained a cannibal and put him on a plane to take him home, and while they had him in his seat, he started to eat himself, and they had to get him off and get him medical attention. These are the kind of deranged individuals that are on our streets in America that we're trying to target and get out of our country because they are so deranged they don't belong here. And I talked today about one of the horrific instances of our individuals, our law enforcement officers, having to put hands on individuals that were even cannibals and removing them from our country. These are deranged individuals that other countries released out of their prisons, out of their mental institutions, and sent them to America. It will come as a great surprise that it appears that Secretary Noem made up that story. In fact, in that clip, even President Trump was shaking his head at it. The Intercept spoke to three federal law enforcement officials who said the story is fictional. All three sources said attempts to verify Noem's claims came up empty. The Intercept reports that Noem has failed to reply to close to two dozen requests for comments since July. Meanwhile, a longtime restaurant owner in Arizona is free this morning after ICE held her in detention for eight months. A federal judge ruled that Chinese national Kelly Yu's continued detention was punitive because her deportation was not imminent. Authorities say Yu crossed the border illegally more than 20 years ago. But she has no criminal record, and China has not provided the travel documents required for her removal. No, not easy. It's, I mean, like freedom in general. So who does not like to have freedom? That's why I'm coming here for. Yu was reunited with her family and also greeted by Arizona Congressman Greg Stanton, who posted this picture on social media. In response, the Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized the judge's ruling ordering Yu's release. Yu does remain at risk of deportation at any time if China issues her travel documents to U.S. authorities. And Gene Robinson, let's remember when President Trump first came to office, he insisted that it would be the worst of the worst who were removed. And instead, not only do we have cases like this, clearly not the worst of the worst, someone whose only crime was to enter the U.S. illegally, but we also have so much of these deportation operations carried out by an agency, DHS, which has lied time and time again, from things as nonsensical as this cannibal story to the circumstances of the shootings, the murders of two American citizens. Yeah, you know, DHS, it's fair to conclude at this point that DHS simply lies all the time about everything. I mean, you look at the lies that were told about what was being done in Minneapolis and about the killings of U.S. citizens and the lies about, you know, various examples of supposedly the worst of the worst and, you know, Ms. Yu in Arizona, I guess, being part of the worst of the worst. And, of course, the lies about cannibalism on the plane. They just—they make stuff up. And, Michael Tomasky, this is not normal, and this is not acceptable, right, for a government department to act this way and to speak this way. When will there possibly be any reckoning for this? I mean, Christine Ohm is still there. Right. Well, the possible reckoning comes after the elections, and if the Democrats take over the House, then they control the relevant committees, and then they can subpoena these people and see if they'll come before Congress and answer subpoenas. I'm not entirely confident they will answer subpoenas, so then we'll have that whole fight. But, you know, at the same time, Gene, I would say there is some reckoning going on, and that reckoning is happening in the minds of the American people who don't approve of what they're seeing here. And I would encourage everybody to read about or go watch the testimony yesterday from the ICE whistleblower, Ryan Schenck, who said some incredible things. He essentially said they are training people to violate the Constitution, and they cut training time of more than half, from 580-something hours to 240 hours, and the kinds of things they cut out were, of course, how to go about your business legally and constitutionally. Right. Without killing people. Right, right. So there is some reckoning going on, but we certainly need more, and that can only happen maybe when the Democrats take the House. Maria Teresa, hi. I'm wondering if you could talk about the sort of—you have a lot of internal polling, and I'm wondering if you could talk about what the sort of feeling is with what we're seeing from DHS and if you're seeing that reflected in different communities. Thank you for asking that question, Molly. One of the things that we're seeing is that, yes, the economy is tanking, but among the Latino community, we also see approval ratings tanking because of the excessive force that they're doing on ICE. When you have a Cuban-American basically saying that they are departing from President Trump, that's the base, that's the Republican base on the Latino side. And when you're seeing that, it is very indicative that he is losing not only the trust, but also people's sense of safety. I have to share with you, when we saw what we're seeing right now in Minneapolis, looks at what happens when a community comes together, not just for the Latino community, but basically standing for American values. One of the things that we are actively supporting at our organization, at Voto Latino Foundation, is Representative Kelly's impeachment papers, encouraging the Democrats to say, no, don't wait for him to fire her, because if you wait for him to fire her, he won't do that. But if you encourage impeachment, at least you start going after a cabinet that's highly incompetent in a place that people actually understand. They're violating the rule of law. No one feels safer. The fact that we have more deaths in detention under this administration than we have in 20 years speaks volumes. And the fact that they've arrested and detained over 170 American citizens that we know of should also give people pause. But then following closely what we're seeing from Congressman Castro in Texas, highlighting what is happening in the Dilley detention, there's roughly 3,700 minors in detention. Many of them are going without medical care. Many of them are going without food. Many of them are going without education. We have instances of six-year-olds that have been there for at least three to four months. That's in direct violation of the Florence Agreement. The Florence Agreement basically says that you cannot detain a child for more than 20 days. So, I mean, you could racket every single violation that they have done. And the fact that the Democrats, I would encourage them to be much stronger, much more forceful, because there is not a household in America that doesn't see a child in these decrepit positions saying that this is not right. This is something that I would encourage them to go full force on. And polling shows Americans broadly disapprove. President of Vota Latino Foundation Maria Teresa Kumar, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Editor at The New Republic, Michael Tomasky, thank you as well.