On Wednesday, the PBS News Hour brought on union chief Paul Perez of the National Border Patrol Council (who represents 18,000 Border Patrol agents), and anchor Amna Nawaz pressed him on why 6 in 10 Americans think immigration enforcement has "gone too far." Perez argued "the media's misleading the public," and Nawaz wasn't going to accept that argument!
It all starts with the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, which sets the stage for liberal pollsters to ask if it's "gone too far." Ask yourself if these pollsters asked if Biden's open-borders approach had "gone too far." The anchor asked:
NAWAZ: We have had American citizens who've been shot and killed by federal agents, including a Border Patrol agent in one case. And you're also talking at a time that the majority of Americans feel like the immigration enforcement actions have gone too far. This was related to ICE, but some six in 10 Americans say it's gone too far. Why do you think that is? Why did the American public see it that way right now?
On the PBS @NewsHour, Amna Nawaz pressed Paul Perez (who represents 18,000 Border Patrol agents) on why 6 in 10 Americans think immigration enforcement has gone too far. Perez blamed media distortion, and Nawaz wasn't going to accept that argument! pic.twitter.com/8sinSqeJiP
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) February 26, 2026
Perez blamed the media for its hostile framing, omitting the context that these aren't always "protesters," they are interfering with arrests:
PEREZ: Well, I think a lot of it is, the media's misleading the public into how things are going.
If you look at all these incidents, if you look at these operations, these are targeted enforcement operations that these arrest teams are going and executing. It's American citizens it's people from the public that are going out there, they're interfering, they're impeding, and they're getting in the way of our law enforcement officers without local law enforcement help. And so what that...
NAWAZ: Paul, if I may, American citizens were shot and killed exercising their First Amendment rights. That's not the media misleading people. That happened.
But Nawaz is framing this exactly the way Perez criticized. Threatening to run over an ICE agent with your car isn't "exercising First Amendment rights," it's not just protest. It's a threat of violence. Pretti kicking out tail lights isn't protest, it's breaking the law by damaging government property.
Perez reiterated his point: "You don't see the full picture. You don't see the actual interference, the impeding. And what's happening with these American citizens that have been killed in both instances that we're referring to, one by an ICE officer and one by a Border Patrol agent, they interfered. The woman in the car, she refused to follow orders."
Nawaz said Good's partner disagreed with that, and Perez said it's on video. He noted that the intended arrestee in the Pretti case escaped, which the media didn't exactly highlight. He suggested that the media plays a role in protesters going too far (but pollsters don't ask about leftists going to extremes):
PEREZ: The investigations are ongoing. These agents and officers have utilized their training. In the specific instance with Pretti, that was a target in enforcement in which the subject they were going after got away because of the interference and the impeding.
And so, yes, I get it. People have lost their lives. But the way the media spins everything, the way they attack our law enforcement officers, they make it seem as if we're out there doing things that are illegal, we're kidnapping American citizens, we're taking people off the streets. That's not what's happening.
And because of that, it leads to the rhetoric. It leads to the interfering. It leads to these people coming out there thinking and believing that we're doing these bad things and causing them to interfere and interject themselves into lawful law enforcement actions. And that's dangerous for everybody.
