CNN Commentator: ICE Brought My Ancestors Here on a Slave Ship
After White House adviser Ivanka Trump opined on her father’s immigration policy this week, a pair of CNN commentators debated whether her denunciation of family separation was sufficiently robust.
Though President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter described the controversial border practice as a “low point,” she went on to defend the administration’s broader hard-line approach to immigration.
Attorney and liberal commentator Angela Rye appeared with Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” on Thursday to discuss the first daughter’s response.
“This is not right,” Rye said of the Trump administration policy. “It is inhumane. And for Ivanka to say at first this is a low point and then to defend the policy means it was not a low enough point.”
She went on to say describe Ivanka Trump’s comments as disingenuous, comparing those who enforce the current immigration law to those who commissioned the slave trade.
“All I’m saying to you is simply this: You can’t say that I’m against separating families and then in the other breath say they shouldn’t be coming here to begin with and they’re going to be separated until they are deported, and then their parents are deported without them,” she said. “What do you say to the 463 adults who have been deported without their children?”
Given a chance to respond, Miller dismissed Rye as “part of the open borders crew,” prompting her to call out his perceived hypocrisy.
“I can’t wait to see your genealogy and see if you have any illegal immigration in your family,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You never once asked me if I’m for open borders.”
Miller again accused her of not wanting to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
“What I don’t want to enforce is your president’s nonsense,” Rye said. “You guys know this policy is ass-backwards, plain and simple. You guys know this policy is inhumane, plain and simple.”
She then claimed that supporters of the policy are viewing the issue through the “lens of bigotry,” leading Miller to charge her with name calling.
Rye defended her comments, suggesting the Trump doctrine is “absolutely based on bigotry and fear-mongering.”
As host Chris Cuomo looked on, his two guests bickered over Rye’s assertion that she does not recognize Trump as her president.
When Miller asked if she was Canadian, she said he was pursuing a “red herring” because he did not want to respond to the crux of her point.
“This is over,” she said. “You have nothing to add except to ask if I’m Canadian — and no I’m not. I wish I could tell you where from Africa my ancestors came from, at least part of them. But I wouldn’t know because the same bigots who are sending people back away from their children are the ones who brought my ancestors here on slave ships.”
Miller once again pressed her on the point, asking her who she recognizes as her president.
“You want to stay on that point because it has nothing to do with child separation,” she said.
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