This whole situation occurred because a convenience feature, which allows you to do a fully automated system to get an approval to board a plane to the US, didn't actually properly check for the legality of entering, so they were only ever determined to be using the wrong type of authorization once they had already arrived, leaving no choice but to detain them at the airport in order to deport them. And this is a pretty crappy situation; a very difficult to navigate bureaucracy, that seems to offer a convenience feature to allow an easy way around it, and then makes you waste a flight and be detained for a day just to be flown back again because you're not an expert on the intricacies of immigration law, is a pretty crappy system.
I agree that some of her rhetoric may have been a bit over the top, but it is a pretty awful situation to have been put in, and it seems like there would be much, much more efficient and humane ways of working around it.
Anyhow, sounds like on the real issue as opposed to arguing semantics, we're in fairly strong agreement. This immigration system is baroque, inhumane, inefficient, and the results actually run counter to what the system is supposed to be doing.
I guess it makes sense. The country hasn't become a prison state with the highest incarcerated population in the world by thinking clearly and acting commensurately.