Dr. Phil McGraw is saying what many Americans have long believed but rarely hear from public figures— that it’s time to stop demonizing law enforcement for doing their job. In response to the backlash over recent ICE raids in Los Angeles, McGraw is pushing back against the Democrat-driven narrative that ICE is unfairly targeting businesses and deporting hard-working immigrants.
In an op-ed published this week in the Daily Mail, McGraw rebutted mainstream media claims that ICE agents were targeting innocent businesses and mom-and-pop stores. He clarified that the businesses raided by ICE were actually suspected of involvement in serious criminal activity.
He wrote that the businesses targeted in the raids, which sparked large anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles last week, were not innocent victims but rather were accused of engaging in money laundering, tax evasion, and customs fraud.
McGraw wrote that ICE “did not conduct a random roundup of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles,” but instead carried out a “coordinated, multi-agency operation pursuant to a duly authorized federal search warrant—not based on a rumor or a hunch.”
His op-ed comes after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed that many of the illegal immigrants detained in last week’s raid included rapists, gang members, drug traffickers, and human smugglers.
In his op-ed, McGraw clarified that while he had previously been “embedded” with ICE during operations in Chicago, he was not embedded with agents during last week’s raids in Los Angeles—contrary to claims made by left-wing media outlets.
“Despite the so-called ‘reporting,’ I was not actually ’embedded’ with Immigration and Customs enforcement officers making arrests during the raids in LA on Friday, June 6,” he said, explaining that he was “privy to the parameters of the operation and conducted an on-camera interview with Border Czar Tom Homan,” he wrote.
Several left-wing pundits, such as MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones, said that McGraw “double[d] down on his role as a MAGA propagandist” amid the ICE raids.
McGraw is “proving essential in whipping up right-wing hysteria over immigrants,” he continued.
Others, like CNN’s Brian Stelter, initially claimed that McGraw was “embedded” with ICE during the raids. However, CNN only updated the story days later with a statement from a MeritTV spokesperson clarifying that Dr. Phil McGraw was not present during the operations and had not been embedded to avoid escalating the situation.
McGraw criticized the backlash against the ICE raids, stating that the operations were a strategic, deliberate, and legally authorized enforcement of the law.
“But the response of some so-called activists, on the other hand, have been dangerous, destructive and utterly lawless,” he wrote.