‘Border Czar’ Personally Leads Deportations of Criminals in Chicago
President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, is not only organizing mass deportations but is on the ground leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in arresting thousands of illegal immigrants. Over the weekend, Homan led ICE agents in raids on Chicago, known as a “sanctuary city.” The Chicago division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) shared on Sunday that its agents are assisting in deportations, posting photos of Homan and ICE officials meeting with DEA agents. Media personality Dr. Phil McGraw has also “embedded” himself with Homan, covering the border czar’s arrests.
“This is an example of ‘sanctuary cities,’” Homan told McGraw while making their first arrest on camera. “You got an illegal alien convicted of sex crimes involving children, he’s walking the streets of Chicago,” Homan observed. The illegal immigrant they arrested was a convicted sex offender and child predator from Thailand. He admitted that he had never been deported. Homan pointed out that “sanctuary city” policies endanger both law enforcement and the public. “The downfall, the problem with ‘sanctuary cities’ is where you have people like this walking the streets instead of local law enforcement working with federal agents. This is what we’re dealing with.”
McGraw also explained how “sanctuary city” policies pose a threat. “If these people are in detention and ICE agents can come into the jail and arrest them there and put them on the path towards deportation, at that point, they can do that in complete safety,” he said. He explained that in a “free environment” like “an apartment complex or an apartment project where there are a lot of civilians around,” illegal immigrants might “resist, if they open fire on these agents, you have to return fire. Then people can get caught in the crossfire.”
Homan has previously stated that deportations are targeting violent criminals first. “ICE will start arresting public safety threats and national security threats on day one. We’ll be arresting people across the country, uninhibited by any prior administration guidelines,” he said last week. McGraw confirmed that the deportation raids currently being carried out are a “targeted ICE mission.” He reported, “These are known criminals and terrorists. We’re talking about murderers, child traffickers, child rapists. We’re talking about bad actors, both in the countries they’ve come from, and since they’ve been here in the United States.”
He added, “Some of these people have 12, 15 arrests, indictments. Some convictions in their home countries and here, but yet, they’re on the streets.” McGraw continued, “And that’s who ICE is targeting to bring out of these communities. We’re going after specific targets, not just sweeping neighborhoods and picking up anyone with a tan, anyone that looks like they don’t belong here.”
Although Democrats like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) have, as The Washington Stand previously reported, refused to cooperate with mass deportations, Chicago residents aren’t as unhappy to see illegal immigrants go. According to Breitbart News, Chicagoans have openly protested Johnson’s numerous programs benefitting illegal immigrants, resulting in the mayor’s approval rating plummeting. Various polls show anywhere from 60% to 75% of Chicagoans hold an unfavorable view of their mayor. In one city council meeting last month, an angry resident called on Trump and Homan to “make an example out of” Johnson and arrest him for opposing deportations.
Homan and ICE arrested a reported 956 illegal immigrants on Sunday alone, following a high of about 1,300 arrests on Thursday. But according to a report from The Washington Post, Trump wants to see even more daily arrests. Although the paper admitted that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared the story “false,” The Washington Post claimed that Trump and White House officials wanted to set daily ICE arrest quotas of anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500.
As TWS reported last week, mass deportation operations began the day after Trump’s inauguration. In addition to Chicago, ICE has also begun immigration raids in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Omaha, Phoenix, and across California, New Jersey, and Texas.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.