US Border Crisis is National Security Crisis: Former ICE Chief Tom Homan

Article author: 
Adam Michael Molon
Article publisher: 
Epoch Times
Article date: 
1 January 2023
Article category: 
National News
Medium
Article Body: 

Tom Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has criticized what he described as lax border security policies under the Biden administration, arguing that the surge in illegal immigration “is on purpose.”

Homan, who served as head of ICE from 2017 to 2018, described the border crisis as one that amounted to public safety, public health, and national security crises....

A November op-ed co-authored by Homan and Mark Morgan, who served as acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from 2019 to 2021 noted, “In just 18 months, Customs and Border Protection has recorded more than 4 million apprehensions— more than the previous four fiscal years combined. The encounters since last October have totaled more than 2.7 million, plus nearly 600,000 known got-aways and likely hundreds of thousands who entered completely undetected.”

“They’ve arrested 114 known and suspected terrorists who tried to get into the country since Joe Biden’s been in the White House … Border Patrol’s arrested people from 161 countries, [and] some of those countries sponsor terrorism,” Homan told The Epoch Times....

“Since Joe Biden’s taken office, there’s a recorded over 1 million got-aways based on camera traffic, drone traffic, sensor traffic. Recorded got-aways. So, if they arrest 114, how many of that 1 million came from a country that sponsors terrorism and is coming to do us harm?”...

Homan criticized the administration’s “alternatives to detention” (ATD) program, colloquially known as “catch and release,” under which the majority of illegal aliens are released into the country while they await their court dates.

“Not only are they letting [illegal aliens] in, they’re setting them up so they’ll never be removed because they’re not in custody,” Homan said....