Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s border czar, has doubled down on his threat to flood New York City with ICE agents as part of the administration’s illegal immigration crackdown.
Guesting on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle with Laura Ingraham Wednesday, Homan was shown a clip of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul saying Trump had promised her there would be no surge of federal forces into the Big Apple unless she asked for it, adding: “I’m not asking.”
Invited to respond, Homan chuckled and answered: “Well Governor Hochul, I’m not asking either. I said it. We’re going to do it.”
Homan complained that Hochul had attempted to put a number of legislative roadblocks in his way, which he said would slow the capture of undocumented migrants suspected of engaging in additional criminal activity who might pose a threat to U.S. citizens.
“She wants to end the partnerships we currently have, which means now we have to send a whole team to look for a criminal that we could have arrested in the safety and security of a jail, which is safer for the officers, safer for the alien, certainly safer for the community,” Homan said.
“So you’re forcing us into the neighborhoods to find this person, since we lost the efficiency of the jails, that you want to lock us out of. Now we’ve got to send whole teams out there to find this person so of course we’re going to increase manpower, a lot.
“And not only that – she says she wants to protect migrant communities. Really? Because now we arrest an illegal alien, we can’t rent a bed from any of the sheriffs in New York state so what’re we going to do? We’re going to fly them to Texas, Arizona, to one of our detention facilities there, away from their families, away from their attorneys.
“This is what we have to do because she forces this position. And we’re going to do it. They’re not going to stop us. They can put all the roadblocks they want, but we're going to do this job.”
Later in the interview, Homan accused Hochul of “trying to turn the American people against ICE” by spreading false narratives about its activities, denying his agents had ever arrested anyone in a hospital, elementary school, or church.
“You’re going to see more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen before. So, congratulations,” he said.
On Tuesday, Homan had told a border security conference that he would be forced to “flood the zone” if New York moved to pass legislation granting sanctuary protections to undocumented migrants.
As Homan alluded to on Fox, the legislation in question would limit to extent to which New York police departments can cooperate with federal immigration authorities and direct where civil deportation warrants can and cannot be executed.
Hochul has also pushed for an agreement with state lawmakers on blocking ICE agents from covering their faces and empowering citizens to sue the agency if they believe their constitutional rights have been violated.
The governor’s moves are part of an effort to try to prevent a repeat of the chaos seen in Minnesota in January, when the adverse reaction to Operation Metro Surge sparked widespread unrest and saw two demonstrators shot dead.
Democratic state senator Pat Fahy told Politico Wednesday that the border czar’s threats were only making lawmakers more resolved to pass the bills in question. “If anything, it makes me want to double down,” he said.
“We have to show that when you have people who are out on the streets like a reign of terror, armed masked agents wreaking havoc, we have to show it will not be tolerated.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson endorsed Homan’s position this week when she said: “If local law enforcement refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement to remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities, more ICE officers will be needed to remove these public safety threats.
“The Trump administration will never allow criminal illegal aliens to have sanctuary in American cities.”
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