TURNCOAT

Hannity Turns His Back on ICE’s Hardline Approach

In a notable pivot, the Fox News host is calling for more “reasonable” immigration enforcement.

Top Trump cheerleader Sean Hannity is suddenly finding limits to how far he’s willing to go to defend the administration’s ICE goons.

The Fox News host—known for treating ICE as an untouchable arm of Trump’s agenda—broke from script Monday on his radio show and openly criticized the agency’s tactics, questioning its workplace raids and urging what he described as a more “reasonable” approach to immigration enforcement.

“Now, is ICE perfect? They’re not,” Hannity said on The Sean Hannity Show. “Can they do a better job? They can.”

He went further, suggesting that raids at places like Home Depot were unnecessary.

“Do I think that, you know, some of the optics at times...going into Home Depots and arresting people there is a good idea? I don’t,” he said.

The comments marked a notable shift for a host who has spent years dismissing concerns about ICE overreach and criticism, and come after a string of deadly shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis.

On Saturday, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent during a protest. Video of the incident shows Pretti on the ground at the time he was shot. The killing followed weeks of unrest in the Twin Cities that began after the Jan. 7 shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was killed by an ICE agent during a protest. Good’s death ignited widespread demonstrations and prompted a massive federal response, with more than 2,400 federal agents deployed across the region.

FALLOUT

Alex Pretti Joined ICE Protest to Honor Slain Renee Good

Martha McHardy

The mounting backlash appears to have worn down even Hannity’s usually ironclad loyalty to the agency. He argued that immigrants working day jobs at places like Home Depot are “not the immediate problem,” an acknowledgment that undercuts the administration’s aggressive push for highly visible enforcement actions.

The administration has greenlit increasingly controversial tactics, including an incident in which ICE agents allegedly used 5-year-old Liam Ramos as bait to detain family members.

Hannity also floated what sounded like a radical departure from Trump-era orthodoxy: paying immigrants to voluntarily self-deport. Under his proposal, undocumented immigrants would come forward, receive health screenings, be given transportation home, and even a $2,000 check—along with the ability to apply to return legally. The proposed program, Hannity said, “is a more responsible, reasonable way to deal with that problem.”

The suggestion was striking, coming from a host who, just days earlier, was still defending ICE agents at all costs. Last week, Hannity engaged in a heated on-air shouting match with Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones, angrily pushing back against criticism of ICE following Good’s killing.

Fox News did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Play Video

Hannity isn’t the only Trump-aligned figure starting to bristle. The administration’s handling of the Pretti shooting has also sparked backlash from gun-rights advocates—normally a reliable MAGA constituency. National Association for Gun Rights President Dudley Brown slammed federal officials after early statements appeared to blame Pretti for the incident.

“The FBI director needs to brush off that thing called the Constitution, because he clearly hasn’t read it,” Brown told Politico. “I know of no more crucial place to carry a firearm for self-defense than a protest.”

That criticism followed remarks by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who labeled Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” and FBI Director Kash Patel, who warned on Fox News that bringing firearms to protests is illegal.

Trump later walked back claims that Pretti was an “assassin,” easing the administration’s initial framing of the killing as pressure mounted over ICE’s conduct.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Tamilore OshikanluContributor

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.