Trump’s Border Czar Has a Smart Surprise for Sanctuary Cities Trying to Hide Criminals

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt of an interview with President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan by the Daily Signal’s Senior National Security and Legal Analyst Mehek Cooke.

Mehek Cooke: Well, let’s expand on that, because I look at sanctuary cities today, and the worst offenders—that’s who I really want to get down to.  

I’m watching New York Democrats today, and they are moving to limit local cooperation with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. They’re moving to restrict you and ban you and ICE officers from even wearing masks, as I’ve seen a massive surge in the type of violence that’s coming out against ICE officers.  

What can we do to ensure that ICE can do their jobs?  

As we’re having Democrats in New York, even Boston … I mean, you talked about lawsuits. I’m seeing a lawsuit there where a judge is skeptical of authority. This clash between federal enforcement and local. How can we make sure that we can prevent a Minnesota?  

Because that’s where we don’t need to be, but I’m telling you, we’re watching this. Democrats are trying to corner this administration to make another flashpoint and an issue in the next sanctuary city. 

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So, what can we do to reduce that? 

Tom Homan: A couple things. First of all, you know, good luck with the law of banning masks. Federal law always trumps state and local law. And while threats are up over 8,000%, masks is a non-starter, so good luck enforcing that.  

Second thing is, you talk about New York. You know, I met with Governor Hochul a couple months ago, and I told her about what happened in Minnesota, that, you know, we were able to draw some resources out of Minnesota because the local jails cooperated with us.  

And I told her the same thing, because I knew this legislation was coming. I said, Look, you end cooperation in the jails, we’re going to have to send more agents to do the job, because now rather than one agent arresting one bad guy in the jail, which is safer for the agent, safer for the alien, safer for the community, of course, you’re going to release him. Now we got to send a whole team, six or seven agents, to go find him. So, it’s going to result more agents in the community. 

Totally briefed on the whole thing, but she decided to go ahead and do it anyways. Well, I made a statement that we’re going to send more agents to New York. We have to as a response to this to go arrest those public safety threats. 

I also told her there’s going to be two things you [she] may not like.  

No. 1, in addition to more agents in your communities, that’s going to mean, one, that when we find the bad guy, and we usually do, they may be with others, that weren’t a criminal target, but they’re in the country illegally. Well, guess what? We’re going to arrest them, too. We’re not going to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration, which means there’ll be more collateral arrests because of your decision to force us in the community.  

And, second of all, part of her legislation prevents ICE from leasing beds, from sheriffs across the state, which we use a lot of those beds. 

That means every illegal alien we arrest, we’re simply going to fly out of state to New York or Arizona or Florida, one of those states, because we’re going to detain them. We’re going to arrest them, we’re going to detain them. And so you wanna lock us out of New York jails for detention, then we’ll simply fly them out. 

And I explained to her, how does that benefit the people you’re saying you’re trying to protect? How does that protect the immigrant community, moving them away from their family and their attorneys while they go through the immigration proceedings? It doesn’t.  

So look, this is just a political spitball and you know, it’s… They’re not going to stop us from doing what we’re doing. We’re just going to have to do more of it now because of those, the legislation that was passed. 

Cooke: But what’s the motivation here, Director? What is the true motivation here? Because you worked for the deporter-in-chief. You worked under President Obama. 

Is it because we have a different president and his name is Donald J. Trump?  

Like, what is the motivation where you’re going, to get so much pushback for common sense? If the truth is, whether it’s Governor Hochul or any other governor in America, their first duty is to protect citizens. Why are you getting so much pushback to remove illegal criminals off of our streets? What’s the real motivation for Democrats? 

Homan: Well, you, just said it. They hate Trump more than they care about their communities. They don’t want President Trump to get a win.  

Second reason is we’re spoiling their long-term plan. They got a long-term strategy here. Open the border up, release millions of people into the United States to go to sanctuary cities. 

But remember, when Biden opened the border, he also overturned the Trump census rule, which illegal aliens would be counted in the next census. So they think, you know, send millions to sanctuary cities, the next census is done, it’s going to result in more seats in the House for the Democrats. They sold this country’s national security out for future political benefit. 

Plus they think these millions will be, you know, future Democratic voters. That’s why they’re putting all the roadblocks up, because they’re hoping before we can move too many, another Democratic administration comes in, they award amnesty to millions of people they think are future Democratic voters. 

They’re having a fit right now because we’re removing record numbers of people that they don’t want removed, because they, like I said, they’ve got a long-term plan.  

So, well, I got a surprise for them. We’re going to keep removing people. We’re going to keep arresting record numbers, because that’s what President Trump was elected for. 

And the reason there’s mass deportation operation, because there’s a mass illegal immigration crisis on the border, so the appropriate law enforcement response to that is a mass deportation program, and that’s why we’re doing it. They set the stage. We’re responding to their incompetence the last four years. 

Cooke: So, you’re saying there’s a clear choice today for any sanctuary jurisdiction. You either cooperate with ICE or you’re going to put more boots on the ground. Is that accurate? 

Homan: Absolutely. And let me say this, because they like to say, sanctuary cities, we’re a welcoming community because we want illegal aliens who are victims and witnesses of a crime to feel safe coming to law enforcement to report those crimes without fear of working with ICE. 

That is such a false narrative because we’re not looking to talk to the victim witness of crime. We’re looking to talk to the person you locked in a jail cell. That’s who we want access to.  

But at the same time, this, they’re the ones that are pushing the false, narrative about ICE officers separating families, arresting people in churches, arresting people in elementary schools, arresting people in hospitals. 

They’re putting fear in immigrant communities. 

Mm-hmm. 

If they’re honest with them, that ICE has never arrested somebody in a church. We’ve never arrested somebody in an elementary school. We’ve never arrested someone in a hospital.  

They won’t say that because there’ll be less fear in the immigrant community, so they’re playing both sides. 

They want to say, well, they’re afraid to come report crimes, but the reason they’re afraid is because the false narrative you put up against ICE.  

Let’s be clear. If they went to the immigrant community and asked them a simple question, would you rather have ICE operating in the jail? Or would you want ICE in the community?

The community’s going to say the jail every time. 

Cooke: Right.  

Homan: So, they’re lying to the American people. Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals, hard stop. It isn’t about protecting victims and witnesses, it’s about protecting criminals, and that’s what you’re doing.