Border czar Tom Homan on Tuesday said that the mass deportation operation has already started, as the Trump administration looks to make good on promises to tackle the border crisis and crack down against illegal immigration.
“No, it started [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] teams are out there as of today,” Homan said on “America’s Newsroom.” “We gave them direction to prioritize public safety threats that we’re looking for. We’ve been working up the target list.”
The administration has promised to launch a “historic” mass deportation operation, and sources told Fox News Digital that arrests were being planned on “day one.” Some media outlets reported on Friday about an operation in Chicago, but Homan said that was re-evaluated due to the leak of information.
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ICE agent (Getty Images)
“There was some discussion about Chicago because the specific operational plan was released. So we had to look at and reevaluate, ‘Does this raise officer safety concerns?’ And it does. But we’ve addressed that and teams are out there, effective today,” he said.
As for who will be targeted in the operation, Homan said that the priority are public safety threats, but he has said repeatedly that no-one is “off the table” when it comes to arrests if they’re in the U.S. illegally.
“Right out of the gate it’s public safety threats, those who are in the country illegally that have been convicted, arrested for serious crime,” he said. “But let me be clear. There’s not only public safety threats that will be arrested, because in sanctuary cities, we’re not allowed to get that public safety threat in the jail, which means we got to go to the neighborhood and find him.”
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Thomas Homan speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington D.C., Monday, July 8, 2024. (DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
“And when we find him, he may be with others. And unlike the last administration, we’re not going to tell ICE officers not to arrest an illegal alien. So if they find, others will be arrested. So sanctuary cities will get exactly what they don’t want, more agents in their neighborhoods and more collateral arrests,” he said.
Homan spoke hours after Fox News reported on two DHS memos, including one that rescinded a 2021 memo by then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — which provided an expanded list of areas that are “protected areas” where ICE could not engage in immigration enforcement. It said the policy was designed to make sure enforcement did not limit “people’s access to essential services or engagement in essential activities.”
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Those areas include schools, universities, healthcare facilities, places of worship, “places where children gather,” social service establishments, food banks, religious or civil ceremonies and disaster or emergency response and relief centers.
The memo issued Monday rescinded that guidance and said that common sense should be used instead.
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“Going forward, law enforcement officers should continue to use that discretion along with a healthy dose of common sense,” the new memo said. “It is not necessary, however, for the head of the agency to create bright line rules regarding where our immigration laws are permitted to be enforced.”