Tom Homan, the skin-covered pustule Donald Trump calls his “border czar,” has long fantasized about jailing Democrats who oppose mass deportations of immigrants. Even before Trump took office, Homan in November threatened Denver Mayor Mike Johnston with arrest after Johnston said he’d be willing to go to jail to block mass deportations, telling Fox News creep Sean Hannity that
“me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing — he’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail because there there’s a statute. It’s Title 8 United States Code 1324 (iii). And what it says is it’s a felony if you knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien from immigration authorities.”
It’s a running theme for Trump’s crew of Nazis, because not cooperating with mass deportation is literally the same as hiding criminals like Anne Frank in your attic. During Trump’s first term, Homan, as Trump’s acting ICE director, pushed for the same thing, and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that federal prosecutors were considering charging Democratic state and local officials of sanctuary cities under the same law.
As the ACLU pointed out back in those ancient times, it is not a crime to refuse to help with federal roundups of immigrants. No matter how many times a Trump official threatens to imprison you on TV.
Homan was at it again Tuesday, during a brief press gaggle where he lied a whole bunch, as is required. Asked if the administration would follow court orders to return people sent to that Salvadoran torture prison, Homan immediately said they were all terrorists, and elaborated that while of course the administration would follow court orders — “unlike the previous administration,” haw haw — “But if you ask me if I’m in favor of returning terrorists to the United States that are gang members, that have murdered and raped young women in this country, no, I’m not in favor of that at all.”
Hey, the reporter didn’t actually name Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the only person who a judge is ordering be returned, so Homan felt free to imply that all those imprisoned in El Salvador were rapists and murderers, despite the lack of evidence presented against any of them by the government.
Anyway, back to imprisoning Democrats. A friendly reporter asked Homan if officials from sanctuary cities and states who “shield or harbor illegal aliens” should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and possibly go to prison?” Homan was delighted that so many wonderful new journalists are now in the White House press pool to let him talk all tough about his dream: “Absolutely,” he answered. “and hold tight on that one, ‘cause it’s coming. It’s coming. I’ve been clear on that since Day One.”
Homan went on to accuse leaders of sanctuary cities of sitting idly by while their cities are “ravaged by illegal aliens,” because that’s just how evil Democrats are, you know. “They watch young women get raped, and murdered, the Trump administration’s not gonna stand for that.” Homan even generously promised that the administration would drive down crime in sanctuary cities for Democrats, since they won’t do it themselves, by deporting everyone of course.
And yet again, Homan threatened arrests for officials who “cross that line of harboring and concealing” undocumented migrants, because he wants to sound tough.
Again, the law hasn’t changed since Homan and Nielsen spouted the same crap in 2018. Opting out of ICE operations isn’t a crime, and officials who refuse to participate are not “harboring” anybody unless they literally have a fugitive in their basement. Here’s the ACLU from the first time around:
ICE can arrest people on its own — and in fact Congress gives the agency billions of taxpayer dollars each year to do just that.
But local police are under no obligation to use their time and resources to help with arrest, detention, and deportation. Local jails need not allow ICE agents to roam their facilities, conduct interrogations, and make arrests without a judicial warrant. And government officials need not share home addresses of local residents to make it easier for ICE to carry out its mass deportation campaign. The point of sanctuary policies is non-participation, meaning that if ICE wants to arrest and deport people it must do the work itself. There is nothing at all criminal about that, and it is irresponsible to suggest otherwise.
And as the Supreme Court has held, the federal government can’t force state and local officials to act as “de facto federal agents,” because Constitution, not that the Trump administration considers that document a limit anymore.
While he was at it, Homan this morning also went on “Fox and Friends” to say he was “disgusted” that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) is traveling to El Salvador to attempt to check on the safety of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and insisted that Abrego Garcia hadn’t been “abducted,” as Van Hollen put it, because (everything after this is a lie. Abrego Garcia is a law-abiding person who has never been connected to any gang, and the government acknowledged he was sent to the Salvadoran prison due to an “administrative error”):
“He is an MS-13 gang member. Classified as a terrorist. That was removed from this country. So we got rid of a dangerous person, an El Salvadorian national, returned to the country of El Salvador to his home. We removed him from the United States, a public safety threat, exactly what should have happened.”
Besides, Homan wanted Van Hollen to instead focus on the horrible 2023 rape and murder of a Maryland woman, Rachel Morin, by an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant instead, since her killer was convicted yesterday. Never missing a chance to wave the bloody shirt, Homan demanded to know why the senator would place the life of a man wrongly sent to a torture prison over the far more important work of helping the administration demonize immigrants?
Homan lamented, “But rather than taking care of the constituents in his state, the victims of illegal crime in his state, he’s going to run to El Salvador to protect an MS-13 terrorist. It’s just disgusting.”
We suppose it’s at least notable that Homan didn’t suggest Van Hollen should be arrested for trying to investigate whether Abrego Garcia is alive.
[New Republic / ACLU / CNN]
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