White House border czar Tom Homan said Tuesday that President Donald Trump's mass deportation has begun as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers can now arrest illegal immigrants in churches and schools.
Fox News reported Tuesday morning that Trump's Department of Homeland Security had rescinded a 2021 policy from President Joe Biden's DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that limited ICE enforcement in “sensitive” areas.
Those areas were described as churches, schools and hospitals, among other things.
Trump's Day 1 order recommended that ICE officers simply use “common sense.”
Homan confirmed Tuesday afternoon that deportations are taking place, but did not reveal details to CNN's Dana Bash.
“As I have said several times, we are focused on threats to public safety. That will be our priority from the start,” Homan said. “So ICE agents are back to doing their job.”
Bash informed Homan where these enforcement actions were taking place and asked if they were “raids.”
“I wouldn't call them raids,” he replied. 'These are targeted enforcement operations. They know exactly who they're looking for, they pretty much know where to find them.”
CNN's Dana Bash (left) interviewed President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan (right) on Tuesday, with Homan revealing that mass deportation efforts have begun
Fox News reported Tuesday morning that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are told to use “common sense” when arresting illegal immigrants, but can now do so at schools, churches and hospitals
Homan said the “target of this operation” is illegal immigrants who have criminal records.
But the border czar then outlined how sanctuary cities won't even allow ICE officials to remove illegal immigrants from jails, which will force agents into immigrant communities.
“If you release a threat to public safety from a prison and they don't want to give us access to him, that means we have to go to the neighborhood to find him, and we will find him, but if we find him, he perhaps in others,” he predicted.
“There is nothing in the INA (Immigration and Nationality Act) that says you have to be convicted of a serious crime before you can leave this country,” Homan explained.
“So there could be more additional arrests in sanctuary cities because they forced us to go out into the community and find the man we're looking for,” he continued.
Bash wondered if spouses of U.S. citizens could be involved in this immigration enforcement.
Homan did not answer that question directly.
“What I want to tell you is that when we go after our primary target, which is a criminal alien, if he is in the United States illegally with others, we will take enforcement action against them,” the border czar said.
“And this is the difference between the previous government and this government,” he said. “ICE will enforce immigration law.”
U.S. voters rewarded Trump with a second term in part because of his tough approach to immigration, as the influx of migrants flooded the southern border after President Joe Biden took office as the COVID-19 pandemic improved.
Trump has said he wants to carry out the largest mass deportation in American history.
He brought in Homan, his acting ICE director during the first year and a half of the Trump administration, to take charge.
Homan was one of the proponents of separating border crossing children from their parents, a policy that was widely criticized by the political left.
Trump has also tapped Stephen Miller, the author of the policy, to become one of his top advisers in the White House this time.
