Geraldo Rivera told CNN the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement is “appalling” cruelty that targets Latinos, even as he conceded the southern border is now sealed after years of chaos.
NewsNation correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera appeared Monday on CNN’s “News Central” and unloaded on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. He called the approach “appalling” and claimed masked ICE agents are “preying largely on Latinos.”
Breitbart reported the remarks, in which Rivera cast routine interior enforcement as racial targeting and predicted a massive Latino shift back to Democrats.
Rivera framed the policy as a betrayal of campaign promises. He said the administration claimed it would pursue “the worst of the worst,” yet is instead going after ordinary workers.
"I think really, if you were to ask me in my heart of hearts, Brianna, I think it is the absolute cruelty, the abject cruelty with which the Trump administration has administered its immigration policy. You know, it is appalling to me how how Latinos have become a this targeted group where racial profiling is happening, where ICE is allowed to wear masks. The only law enforcement agency in the country, as far as I know, that is masked, and they are preying largely on Latinos."
He continued that the result is fear in Latino communities and a political realignment. Rivera claimed two out of three Latinos who previously backed Republicans are now heading the other way, often to Democrats, across Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California.
"Let me just say that among Latinos, for example, anyone who voted Republican and has historically, not anyone, but I would say two out of three, have now decided to go back the other way, in many cases to the Democrats, from Florida to Texas to Arizona, California. I think that huge Latino belt in the southern part of the country is going to go overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly go for the Democrats."
Rivera tied the shift to cost of living and what he called “the war in Iran that the president started with no clear idea how to end.” But he put immigration enforcement at the center of the complaint and made it personal.
In the same monologue Rivera admitted the southern border is now secure after “terrible problems.” He then asked why the administration would not simply show “compassion” for people who have been in the country for years without criminal records.
"And you can see how that toxic brew has had a profound impact. People are sad. People are frightened. You know, they they said they were going to go after the worst of the worst. Instead, they’re going after Juan and Maria, the babysitter and the apple picker. It’s something that’s deeply unsettling. And I think that if the Republicans are ever to regain the trust of the Latino voter, now the border is secure in the south, okay, there were terrible problems with the border. We get that. But now that it’s sealed, basically, why not have compassion for people who have been here for years and years and have committed no crimes? You know, it’s something that is very, very personal, Brianna, to many Latinos, like me."
That sequence is the heart of the critique. The border crisis that defined the prior years is treated as solved, yet the tools used to keep it solved, interior removals and ICE operations, are labeled cruelty and racial profiling.
Rivera’s appearance came on a network that has spent years framing Trump enforcement in the harshest terms, a pattern that also produced the White House decision to limit CNN access over repeated fake-news disputes.
Lawful immigration and secure borders remain popular with the voters Rivera claims are fleeing. Enforcement against illegal immigrants who entered or stayed unlawfully is not “preying.” It is the basic job of immigration officers. Masks, when used, protect agents facing doxxing and assaults that became routine during the last open-border surge.
Rivera offered no incident reports, arrest data, or official policy texts to back the “racial profiling” charge. He offered a television monologue. The same media ecosystem that amplified open-border policies now recoils when those policies are reversed.
Trump has faced similar pushback from legacy outlets on other fronts, including sharp exchanges over health coverage that led him to warn of legal consequences for distorted reporting.
Meanwhile the administration continues to deliver concrete wins that rarely receive the same airtime. Courts have backed key election-integrity steps, including the moment the Supreme Court cleared a mail-ballot executive order ahead of the midterms.
Fiscal discipline has also drawn fire even as taxpayers see results, such as the late-year move that canceled nearly $1 billion in federal funds.
Rivera’s “two out of three” claim remains his personal estimate, not a cited poll. What is clear is that working-class Latino communities lived with the consequences of the prior border collapse, strained schools, hospitals, and wages, while elites called enforcement extreme.
Those same communities also watch Democratic fundraising freeze and internal second-guessing after the 2024 results, a shift noted when Obama-era aides described megadonors locking up their checkbooks.
Compassion that ignores the law is not compassion for citizens or for legal immigrants who waited their turn. It is a preference for the status quo that produced the “terrible problems” Rivera himself acknowledged.
Voters who wanted the border sealed got the seal. The agents doing the job are not the villains in that story.