A former acting head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said Saturday he is in agreement with the Trump administration’s decision to deploy members of an elite Border Patrol unit to so-called “sanctuary cities.”
In an interview with Fox News, Thomas Homan, who served under the Trump administration, said the president is “absolutely right” to deploy the special team.
He also noted that he himself asked Congress to do something about the issue for years, but they didn’t, and they won’t now because “they want it to be a 2020 issue.”
He told the network that when “California passed their sanctuary law,” and he was the head of ICE, he “sent a lot of additional agents out to California,” which he claims the state saw as “retaliation.”
But it wasn’t that at all, Homan explained.
“When you take an agent of the jail, an agent that can process ten illegal aliens during a shift, and you choose to kick the officer out of the jail, then release those ten illegal aliens, it takes a whole fusion of operations teams to find this person on his turf, [who has] access to who knows what weapons … cover the backdoor, cover the front door, make an entry team,” he said, “So, it takes a hell of a lot more agents.”
“I’m glad the President’s doing this,” Homan said. “This is a great idea. This will help arrest those who are public safety threats and take them off our streets.”
Asked if he believes that the decision will send a message to other potential illegal immigrants, Homan said, “Absolutely.”
“It’s going to send a strong message that, look, this country is not open to illegal immigration,” said Homan.
“If you’re lucky enough to get by the Border Patrol, you’re not home free no matter what the Democrat leadership wants to say. You can go to a so-called sanctuary city,” he added. “There’s no sanctuary. ICE is not going to allow sanctuary; neither is the Border Patrol.”