Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
On Friday's Morning Joe on MS NOW, the show continued misinforming viewers about the recent ICE shooting in Austin in spite of the fact that fact checkers like Fox News host Will Cain had already debunked some of the claims pushed by liberals.
As co-host Willie Geist brought up the shooting and arrest of Wilber Garces Perez, an illegal alien from Venezuela, he recalled:
Wilber Garces Perez, who is from Venezuela, was shot by an ICE agent on Sunday during a traffic stop after the 28-year-old said the agent sideswiped his car and video showed the same. Garces Perez remains in a south Texas detention center, with that bullet still lodged in his back. In a separate social media post, DHS added it would, quote, "never apologize for arresting and removing" migrants who, quote, "should have never been in America in the first place."
Reciting misinformation from Perez's attorney, and complaining that ICE has not shown "humanity" in its statements, Geist added:
The attorney for Garces Perez has said her client entered the country lawfully as an asylum seeker and had a legal work permit. We've been talking about this quite a bit this week. DHS obviously, as expected, blaming the victim, showing no humanity whatsoever.
This was a DoorDash driver who says he was swiped and effectively run off the road and then shot in the back. A bullet that's still there laid on a concrete floor in ICE detention center, not getting the medical care he needs, the surgery he needs for his spine. And yet in these statements, you just see no reflection, no humanity, no anything from DHS or ICE.
Then, even though Perez had a deportation order issued against him, and it is a criminal offense to remain in the country in defiance of such an order, co-host Mika Brzezinski jumped in to add more misinformation:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, possibly no truth. I mean, if he's here legally, then he's not what they're calling them. And they're defaming him. They're twisting this reality. They're calling people illegal aliens. And, by the way, being undocumented, civic offense.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right. You know, the thing is also he had a work permit.
BRZEZINSKI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: According to his attorneys, he had a work permit.
After New York Times opinion writer Mara Gay declared that the Trump administration is "terrorizing" immigrants to keep the country white, Scarborough alluded to ICE making arrests in churches even though ICE has not been targeting houses of worship.
By contrast, on Wednesday evening on Fox, Cain called out the misinformation parroted by liberals. He began by actually showing video of ICE vehicles with their emergency lights flashing as they chased Perez, demonstrating that he should have known he was being chased by law enforcement even though the vehicles were unmarked.
He also informed viewers that he was in the country illegally, his work permit was expired, and that a work permit would not confer legal status even if it were still active.
Appearing as a guest, border czar Tom Homan disputed claims that ICE denied Perez treatment, and contended that the hospital had decided when he could be released into ICE custody.
Also, noting that Perez's left-wing attorney has been spreading misinformation to the media, Cain informed viewers that she recently shared a tweet tastelessly making fun of Charlie Kirk's murder.
Transcripts follow:
MS NOW's Morning Joe
September 25, 2026
6:35 a.m. Eastern
WILLIE GEIST: The Department of Homeland Security is defending its actions after an ICE agent shot a DoorDash driver in the back during a recent traffic stop in Austin -- the story we've been talking about a lot this week. DHS posted on social media, "The agency will not slow down its operations in Texas," writing, quote, "Our mission is to administer the laws passed by Congress. We do not pick and choose which laws to enforce or where we enforce them."
Wilber Garces Perez, who is from Venezuela, was shot by an ICE agent on Sunday during a traffic stop after the 28-year-old said the agent sideswiped his car and video showed the same. Garces Perez remains in a south Texas detention center, with that bullet still lodged in his back. In a separate social media post, DHS added it would, quote, "never apologize for arresting and removing" migrants who, quote, "should have never been in America in the first place." The attorney for Garces Perez has said her client entered the country lawfully as an asylum seeker and had a legal work permit.
We've been talking about this quite a bit this week. DHS obviously, as expected, blaming the victim, showing no humanity whatsoever. This was a DoorDash driver who says he was swiped and effectively run off the road and then shot in the back. A bullet that's still there laid on a concrete floor in ICE detention center, not getting the medical care he needs, the surgery he needs for his spine. And yet in these statements, you just see no reflection, no humanity, no anything from DHS or ICE.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, possibly no truth. I mean, if he's here legally, then he's not what they're calling them. And they're defaming him. They're twisting this reality. They're calling people illegal aliens. And, by the way, being undocumented, civic offense.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right. You know, the thing is also he had a work permit.
BRZEZINSKI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: According to his attorneys, he had a work permit.
BRZEZINSKI: They keep changing the rules.
SCARBOROUGH: He came here legally. They do keep changing the rules because they have these insane quotas that they're never going to meet, but they're going around shooting people in the back. Again, I mean, you know, this happened in Texas. It is a human tragedy. It is also one of the reasons -- you (Mara Gay) are in Texas -- it is also one of the reasons why Donald Trump did better with Hispanics in 2024 than any President since George -- any Republican since George W. Bush. And his party is going to do worse now in 2026 because, well, all of the horror that they visited upon the Hispanic community there.
MARA GAY, THE NEW YORK TIMES: You know, not just there -- across the country, right.
SCARBOROUGH: Of course.
GAY: Of course it's very intense. But I have not found a voter anywhere in Texas, anywhere in any state I have traveled to -- I've traveled to a lot of swing states this year -- who has defended the way that ICE is prosecuting this campaign against brown people, against Hispanic people. I have not found a Trump supporter who likes the way this campaign has been prosecuted, and I believe that, come November, it's going to be hell to pay. Honestly, I don't -- I think that the amount of anger -- I mean, also just the reverberation within a community. You have one person who's arrested by ICE. God forbid something happens to them physically in terms of the violence that ICE has been perpetrating. But one person, that reverberates through an entire community. So you have entire communities that have been terrorized by this campaign.
And -- and I think that there's also just a dawning awareness that this is not about border security at all. This is not about border security. This is about keeping America white. And this is about cruelty. And this is about, I think, lawlessness. And, you know, you were saying a moment ago that you want to see people who are breaking the law held to justice.
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
GAY: You know, so do voters, and they're fed up with it. And I -- I just -- I don't think the fact that this is unpopular and they're still doing it anyway ahead of a midterm election, what does that tell us about their view not just of immigrants, but of the American people?
BRZEZINSKI: And of the American process and of our systems.
GAY: Due process. I mean, but I am personally offended as an American because this is being done on in our name, and it's a stain upon all of us, right? It makes us less.
SCARBOROUGH: And I think that's -- I think Americans are going to be heard on election day because, Mika, Mara brings up a great point. You don't have to arrest everybody in a church. You don't have to arrest half the people in church -- arrest one or two people in church who are here with a legal work permit, and it spreads throughout that entire church community. It spreads throughout the neighborhoods. It spreads throughout the workplaces.
And it's why you're seeing extraordinarily bad numbers for Republicans when it comes -- comes to the immigration and also comes to Hispanic support. It is completely collapsed because they are intentionally terrorizing people who often are here legally. And -- and what does that do to the other people who are here legally? They stay in their homes. They're afraid to go work. They're afraid to take their kids to school. They're afraid to live what they thought was going to be the American dream.
. steve malzberg
