During a portion of an interview with NBC News aired on Wednesday’s “NBC Nightly News,” ICE Field Operations Assistant Director Todd Lyons responded to concerns that ICE will go after people in the country illegally who haven’t committed any additional crimes by pointing out that there are some who “have exhausted all legal means.” And have lawful removal orders.

NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Gabe Gutierrez asked, “There are some who fear that ICE will also arrest immigrants that are here that may not have criminal records. To that, you say what?”

Lyons answered, “To that, what we are focused on is, obviously, public safety, national security threats. But then there are those, too, that have exhausted all legal means. In the end, they’ve been ordered legally removed from the United States and we’ve got — we’ll go ahead and affect those removal orders.”

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