Michael Barbaro

In a sense, you're saying don't overfund them.

But in making the argument you're making,

You're drawing an interesting distinction.

You're suggesting that many voters want and expect a certain conduct from immigration enforcement agents and that they want enforcement to be focused on criminals.

We've talked to plenty of people on this show, and from what you said, you're a listener.

Voters who want interior enforcement based on the fact that they believe illegally crossing the border into the U.S.

itself is a crime.

And so...

In making the distinctions that you are, are you in a certain sense potentially creating an incentive, the incentive that Democrats have been criticized for creating, which is you can come to the United States, you can come illegally, and you can stay?

And isn't that what President Trump won his election in part based on?

How confident are you that the position you're articulating here is

is where most Americans are.

And I ask that because I have some inside information from my colleagues in the newsroom and the Washington Bureau who saw a memo that you circulated to some of your colleagues in the Democratic caucus of the Senate making the case that there is a right way to talk about this that involves

both criticizing immigration enforcement as it currently exists, while also establishing some firm understandings about what is wrong with illegal immigration and where enforcement needs to be very tough.

Okay, so they want an effective – this polling shows that voters want an effective ICE that follows the rules, but that does its job particularly when it comes to detaining, deporting criminal immigrants who are here illegally.

That's right.

That's what you found.

I want to go back to the last shutdown as a point of reference.

Leaders of your party, like Senator Chuck Schumer, they believe that ultimately that shutdown, which you didn't support, but it sounds like you gained some valuable lessons from, that that was a political victory in the way that it elevated the issue of rising healthcare costs and put it on Republicans.

But even as a victory politically, it did not result in policy changes.