A Michigan Democratic Senate candidate got into a heated on-air argument with Fox News host Jesse Watters over immigration enforcement.
Abdul El-Sayed faced off with Watters on the Fox primetime program, with the two clashing over abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the war effort in Iran, and several other charged cultural topics. Watters opened the confrontation by pressing El-Sayed directly on his position supporting the elimination of ICE.
El-Sayed pushed back by pointing to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the federal agency that managed immigration cases before ICE was established in 2003. “We were able to enforce our immigration policies without shooting people in the face and the back of the head,” El-Sayed told Watters during the exchange.
Watters did not concede the point. He responded that the INS carried out the same functions as ICE during its time. The two then moved into a separate dispute over the number of immigrants without legal status currently living in the United States.
As originally reported, the exchange grew increasingly tense at that point, with both men talking over each other as El-Sayed tried to respond. “I mean, to your point, Jesse, Jesse, let me just answer the question,” El-Sayed said, visibly pressing to get a word in. He then argued that far fewer people were in the country illegally during the INS era compared to today.
Watters held his ground throughout, keeping El-Sayed on defense for much of the segment. The back-and-forth captured the broader tension between the two men on immigration policy, with neither side giving much ground before the segment concluded.
