On Saturday’s The Weekend show, MSNBC contributor and host of the public-radio show Latino USA Maria Hinojosa rolled out a series of inflammatory remarks against ICE agents and the leftist protests and interference in their enforcement actions. It began by comparing ICE to to the horror of being in New York City during the 9/11 attacks. Then it devolved into a Nazi comparison by claiming that Illegal alien children in hiding are like Anne Frank, little “Anita Francos” in America.
Finally, Hinojosa accused ICE of murder in the recent case where an illegal alien struck an ICE agent with his car and was shot when the agent being dragged underneath shot him to defend himself, which was described by MSNBC as the migrant simply “trying to resist arrest.”
Co-host Jackie Alemany set up the segment by showing video of State Senator Karina Villa (D-IL) in a state of hysteria as she wandered through a Chicago neighborhood shouting at ICE agents and warning residents to stay indoors, with the MSNBC touting her as “standing up to agents.”
After Senator Villa recalled why she behaved as she did, co-host Jonathan Capehart showed a clip of a border patrol leader, Gregory Bovino, on Fox News reacting to the Illinois Democrat’s hysteria, in which he questioned her mental health by declaring that she “she really needs to see someone. She may need some help.” The MSNBC host then cued up Hinojosa to gripe about Bovino and make her over the top 9/11 comparison:
MARIA HINOJOSA: That is just the worst possible comment that could come out of a man’s mouth, period. But, then, specifically towards a Latina to basically say, “Tu estas loca — you’re crazy.” I was with Senator Karina Villa just hours after that moment, and we talked about what that experience was like because I know because of my own trauma here in New York City post-9/11 what that feeling is when you’re taking to the streets and you’re screaming. Nobody wants to be in that situation, and that is the kind of trauma that I saw in Senator Karina Villa’s moment, and, frankly, it has made her a hero in the city of Chicago.
After co-host Eugene Daniels followed up by complaining that Chicago residents were “treated with such callousness by the federal government,” Hinojosa stayed hyperbolic as she invoked the Holocaust:
Right now, the trauma — I posted actually right after that first day on the ground in Chicago, I posted about the fact that there are little Anne Franks, right? Anne Frank in Chicago — her name is Anita Franco, and she is terrified. And Senator Villa knows that because those are her constituents — little girls and boys who are afraid to come out of their homes. On the other hand, people who have privilege with citizenship — you can see that they will defend the city of Chicago against this assault, and they will defend the suburbs of the city of Chicago as well.
Jumping in again, Alemany incorrectly stated that a “citizen” had been killed by ICE agents in Chicago as she failed to inform viewers that an agent was seriously injured by illegal alien Silverio Villegas-Gonzales before the suspect was shot to death:
How are you preparing for the possibility of the Trump administration sending the National Guard to your city? And how do you think that’s going to exacerbate the issues that’s already — that are already very clearly playing out. I mean, there have been several instances of violence reported, and, just this week, there were ICE officers in a fatal shooting who weren’t wearing body cameras that resulted in a citizen who was trying to resist arrest and flee ICE being killed?
Toward the end of the segment, Villa claimed that it is not safe to be brown or black in America, and Hinojosa claimed that ICE agents had committed murder against Villegas-Gonzales and deceptively described him as “running” even though he reportedly tried to drive away, dragging an ICE agent. Here’s Hinojosa:
And let’s just be clear that what happened in Chicago with the murder of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez [had] sole custody of his children — you have to be an exemplary father to get sole custody of your two children. This is a line in the sand that has been crossed. Two people died in California over ICE raids — one ran into traffic, the other fell off a roof. This was a man running who was shot, so let’s be very clear, a line in the sand has been crossed, and Silverio sadly will not be the only one.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC’s The Weekend
September 20, 2025
8:39 a.m. Eastern
JACKIE ALEMANY: Although President Trump has yet to follow through on his threat to send National Guard troops to Chicago. ICE has increased its presence in the area as the immigration crackdown intensifies. Friday federal agents used teargas to disperse protesters outside of a suburban ICE processing center. And one state lawmaker is going viral for standing up to the agents she says were targeting families in a west Chicago suburb.
(clip of woman walking through streets shouting a warning for residents to stay in their homes and demanding that ICE agents remove their masks)
ALEMANY: And joining us now is that state senator of Illinois, Karina Villa, along with Futura Group founder Maria Hinojosa. Thank you both for joining us this morning. Karina, I want to ask you to walk us through that emotional and powerful video and sort of the impetus for those actions that you took this week.
STATE SENATOR KARINA VILLA (D-IL): I think that the impetus for that comes directly from the fact that I was a school social worker, and that community knew. And I was a school social worker for 15 years in working class communities as well as coming from immigrant parents. In that moment, all I thought of was I needed to make sure to keep my community safe — keep the students safe. There were buses on their way to school — that I wasn’t thinking with my head, I was thinking with my heart.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hey, Maria, I want you to listen to what the border patrol chief had to say about what the state senator did. Watch this.
GREGORY BOVINO, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: When I see this, I think she really needs to see someone. She may need some help. As far as taking our masks off, that’s to keep our border patrol agents and ICE officers safe with a 1,000 percent increase in assault against federal agents doing operations such as this.
CAPEHART: I mean, I think I know who the person who actually needs help, but, Maria, your reaction to that?
MARIA HINOJOSA, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: That is just the worst possible comment that could come out of a man’s mouth, period. But, then, specifically towards a Latina to basically say, “Tu estas loca — you’re crazy.” I was with Senator Karina Villa just hours after that moment, and we talked about what that experience was like because I know because of my own trauma here in New York City post-9/11 what that feeling is when you’re taking to the streets and you’re screaming. Nobody wants to be in that situation, and that is the kind of trauma that I saw in Senator Karina Villa’s moment, and, frankly, it has made her a hero in the city of Chicago.
And, more importantly, right, these are the suburbs of Chicago — these are not poor Latinos who are not working. These are the suburbs — the western suburbs of Chicago. So let’s be clear that this is a very specific target against Latinos and Latinas who are actually contributing to the city of Chicago, the suburbs, and frankly the country.
EUGENE DANIELS: Maria, I — we were just talking about the Trump administration’s attack on African Americans and this picture that tells you everything you need to know about slavery and the Civil War. And what I can’t get out of my head is that these things are very connected, and the thing that connect them is a callousness. You’ve been in Chicago, and you have been talking to people there, and I’m curious what you have gleaned from them and other folks you’ve been talking to about what it does to you — to the psyche of a person to watch themselves be — and the people that look like them — be treated with such callousness by the federal government, by the agents of the state and people that have guns and other arms as they are running through their cities?
(…)
HINOJOSA: Right now, the trauma — I posted actually right after that first day on the ground in Chicago, I posted about the fact that there are little Anne Franks, right? Anne Frank in Chicago — her name is Anita Franco, and she is terrified. And Senator Villa knows that because those are her constituents — little girls and boys who are afraid to come out of their homes. On the other hand, people who have privilege with citizenship — you can see that they will defend the city of Chicago against this assault, and they will defend the suburbs of the city of Chicago as well.
ALEMANY: And we have President Trump this week again threatening to send the National Guard to Chicago. Senator Villa, I want to ask you: How are you preparing for the possibility of the Trump administration sending the National Guard to your city? And how do you think that’s going to exacerbate the issues that’s already — that are already very clearly playing out. I mean, there have been several instances of violence reported, and, just this week, there were ICE officers in a fatal shooting who weren’t wearing body cameras that resulted in a citizen who was trying to resist arrest and flee ICE being killed?
VILLA: The death of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was a travesty. He left two young children that he was raising behind. What we’re seeing with that pepper spray that’s being thrown at the protesters, that’s also being — that’s also blocking the media from recording this moment. All of these things together, we see that this — these — our freedoms are being eroded right before our eyes. We have ICE agents putting their hands on the triggers of their weapons as people are peacefully protesting in Broadview. So when you say, “What are we doing to prepare for the moment if the administration decides to send more troops — or troops — to Illinois?” we are in preparation by doing the actions that we are doing right now. People are coming to the street, allies, people who are citizens, people who are retired are coming to the streets to protect their neighbors, and that’s what we are going to continue to do.
ALEMANY: Is it safe — is it safe, though, Senator, to be doing that?
VILLA: Right now, it is not safe to be brown — right now, it is not safe to be black — right now, it is not safe to speak up and speak out, but we cannot stay hidden and fearful. We need to be out and witness these moments safely and at a distance. We need to record what is happening in this moment.
HINOJOSA: And let’s just be clear that what happened in Chicago with the murder of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez [had] sole custody of his children — you have to be an exemplary father to get sole custody of your two children. This is a line in the sand that has been crossed. Two people died in California over ICE raids — one ran into traffic, the other fell off a roof. This was a man running who was shot, so let’s be very clear, a line in the sand has been crossed, and Silverio sadly will not be the only one.
DANIELS: Illinois State Senator Karina Villa and Maria Hinojosa, thank you so much for coming on The Weekend.
