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Dr. Phil Is Shadowing Trump’s ICE Raids for Some Reason

The longtime talk show host joined Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers as they carried out missions in Chicago.

Television personality Dr. Phil scored exclusive access to the start of President Donald Trump’s long-promised mass deportation efforts on Sunday, and he made sure to get it all on camera.

The longtime talk show host, whose full name is Phil McGraw, aired live coverage of a series of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Chicago on his streaming platform MeritTV over the weekend.

He was joined by Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who was recently appointed acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“It’s a pretty high-risk mission that we’re going on,” Dr. Phil said in one video, claiming that the operation was aimed at capturing over 200 “high-value targets,” or people with criminal histories.

“This truly is a targeted ICE mission because they’re not sweeping neighborhoods like people are trying to imply,” he said. “I know that because I’ve been involved in this.”

ICE said it began conducting “enhanced targeted operations” alongside partner agencies in Chicago on Sunday “to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”

In a conversation with Homan, Dr. Phil repeatedly asked the acting ICE chief to downplay claims that agents were raiding schools and workplaces.

“Are you going into schools and arresting children at schools?” the TV host asked, prompting a “No” from Homan.

“Are you going into businesses and sweeping through there and taking anybody with a tan and seeing where they’re from?” Dr. Phil followed up.

“We go into businesses for a criminal enforcement operation,” Homan responded. “But again, sweeps don’t occur anywhere.”

Dr. Phil rose to fame in 1998 when Oprah Winfrey brought him on as a guest expert on topics such as marriage and parenting. He quickly proved to be a hit with audiences, earning an eponymous standalone show in 2002.

In the past year, Dr. Phil emerged as a friendly face in Trumpworld, cozying up to the president in two softball interviews.

Dr. Phil also spoke at Trump’s infamous Madison Square Garden rally in November—where a comedian opening up for Trump called Puerto Rico a “floating pile of garbage.” McGraw later claimed that he only did it because the Kamala Harris campaign team snubbed him.

The live coverage of an immigration enforcement mission, however, appears to be a first for the daytime television legend—and one that risks more fully tying him to some of the more unpopular parts of Trump’s agenda.

ICE drew outrage last week when agents arrested a U.S. military veteran in a Newark raid.

“Forget the false narrative of sweeping neighborhoods looking for people of different color than us,” Homan said. “Forget that hogwash and look at what we actually do. We’re proving it to them. How can you argue with the system we’ve set up?”

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In an earlier interview with ABC News, however, the border czar sang a different tune.

Homan refused to rule out school raids targeting young men, arguing that they would assess situations on a “case-by-case” basis.

“Name another agency, another law enforcement agency [that] has those types of requirements, that they can’t walk into a school or doctor’s office or a medical campus,” he said.

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