Immigration Chief: We’re Sending Hundreds Of Agents To Sanctuary Cities

A few weeks ago, the chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remarked that illegal aliens “should be afraid” of ICE.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan said in an interview that he has “zero regrets” about his remarks before Congress this week, expanding on them.

“It needed to be said,” Homan told CNN on the sidelines of a Central American prosperity and security conference.

“And by me saying you should be worried, you should be afraid — if you lie on your taxes, you’ve got to be worried, ‘Is the IRS going to audit me?’ … When you speed down the highway, you’ve got to worry, ‘Am I going to get a speeding ticket?’ You worry. It’s natural human behavior.”

Now, in a wide ranging interview in the Washington Examiner, Homan has laid down another marker that is sure to endear him to the open borders caucus:

A key target are the 300-plus sanctuary cities and counties that do not cooperate with ICE and ignore requests that they detail criminal illegals for ICE arrest and deportation proceedings.

Homan called sanctuaries “ludicrous,” adding, “In the America I grew up in, cities didn’t shield people who violated the law.”

A New York native who took his first immigration job during the Reagan administration, Homan said that he plans to flood sanctuary cities with agents. He has been OK’d to hire 10,000 new agents and many will help track down illegals in those havens.

“The president recognizes that you’ve got to have a true interior enforcement strategy to make it uncomfortable for them,” he said.

He ripped cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco that refuse to let ICE officers into jails to seize illegal criminals. He explained that it is much safer for ICE targets, police and citizens to make the arrest in jails than on city streets.

How is Homan able to do that? Since President Trump’s inauguration, attempts a crossing the border are down by 70% and arrests inside the United States are up by 40%. The precipitous drop in attempts at crossing the border is freeing up agents for use duty in apprehending illegals in the United States and taking custody of illegals from state and local authorities.

“You can like President Trump, not like him, like his policies, not like his policies, but one thing no one can argue with is the effect they’ve had,” said Homan, the former chief ICE enforcement boss and a 30-year immigration agency veteran.

He said that the change in immigration enforcement has been radical — and welcome — under Trump. “You’d think everybody would be celebrating these policies,” he said during the 45-minute interview in his office.

One group he says are cheering: Border Patrol and ICE agents. “Now they have meaning to their jobs,” said Homan. “What this president has done is taken the handcuffs off of law enforcement officers who are charged with enforcing immigration laws,” he added.

He is exactly right.

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