(The Center Square) – President Joe Biden’s border policies can’t be attributed to mismanagement or incompetence, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan said at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night. “It’s a choice. It’s national suicide.”
Homan, who has a more than 30-year career in law enforcement, began his career as a Border Patrol agent in 1984. After 34 years, he became the first director of ICE, twice, who “actually came up through the ranks,” he said. “I worked for six presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. Every president I've worked for said they were going to secure the border. President Trump actually did it.”
He also repeated what he has said numerous times: Trump “created the most secure border in our history” and cited his successful border policies.
“Under President Trump, we cut illegal immigration by 90%, the lowest level in 45 years,” he said. “Deportations rose to the highest level ever, including historic numbers of illegal alien gang members and criminals. Most importantly, four years under President Trump, we had 13 people we arrested on the Terrorist Watch List, [under] Joe Biden, 381,” he said, referring to those who illegally entered between ports of entry at the southwest border.
The total number of known or suspected terrorists who were apprehended under the Biden administration is much higher, over 1,700, with the greatest number coming through the northern border, The Center Square first reported. The greatest number of illegal border crossers have entered the U.S. while Biden’s been in office of over 12 million, including two million who evaded capture, known as gotaways, The Center Square first reported. Law enforcement officials estimate the gotaway number is underreported by between 10 and 20 percent and say they have no idea how many, who or where they are.
“Let's remember, we got over two million known gotaways,” Homan said, a number first reported by The Center Square, which exclusively began reporting the data in September 2021 . “How many of them came from a country that sponsors terrorism? God help us. Biden is the first president in American history to come into office and unsecure our border. Who the hell does that?”
The president has also created the greatest national security threat since 9/11, he told The Center Square.
He described the policies the president implemented to unsecure the border. “On their first day in office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris suspended deportations, they stopped the [building of] the border wall. They canceled the Remain in Mexico policy,” he said. “They reinstated [the Obama-era] catch and release policy. They proposed amnesty for millions along with free healthcare. Now we have a record illegal migration, a record number of women and children being sex trafficked, a record number of Americans dying from fentanyl, a record number of known suspected terrorists sneaking across our border.”
He also reiterated what he has been saying for years: Biden’s border policies aren’t examples of mismanagement or incompetence. “This is by design and it's a choice. It's national suicide,” he said.
“On November 5, the American people do have a choice,” Homan said, “if they want to stop this madness.”
He also gave a message for those in the country illegally and for Mexican cartels.
“I got a message, as a guy who spent 34 years deporting illegal aliens,” he said. “I got a message to the millions of the illegal aliens that Joe Biden released in our country in violation of federal law, ‘you better start packing now. Because you are going home.’”
Former President Donald Trump has pledged to enforce federal law and deport as many illegal foreign nationals as possible.
“I got another message to the criminal cartels in Mexico,” Homan said. “You’ve smuggled enough fentanyl across this country to kill 148,000 young Americans. You have killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world combined. When President Trump gets back in office, he's going to designate you a [foreign] terrorist organization (FTO). He's going to wipe you off the face of the earth. You're done.”
Twenty-one Republican attorneys general have called on Biden to designate Mexican cartels as FTOs. In September 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order designating Mexican drug cartels as FTOs and requested the president to designate them as FTOs a second time. His first request was in April 2021. He has said he received no response.
In the last two legislative sessions, Abbott has signed several border security bills into law. Last year, he signed a bill into law designating Mexican cartels as FTOs, The Center Square reported .
Abbott launched Texas’ own border security mission, Operation Lone Star, to secure the Texas border and do what the president wasn’t, he argues. To fund it, the Texas legislature has allocated nearly $12 billion to border security efforts, more than multiple state fiscal year budgets and more than what the Trump administration allocated to federal border security efforts in Texas, The Center Square reported .
“President Trump is going to end the Biden Harris open border madness,” Homan said. “We will stop the drugs and the crime from pouring into your neighborhoods. President Trump has proven he's a warrior. He’s going to make America safe again and you can take that to the bank.”
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