Trump ‘doing the right thing’ on immigration: Tom Homan

(NewsNation) — The Trump administration is using “every tool in the toolbox in a legal fashion” to carry out President Donald Trump’s mission to secure the southern border and crack down on illegal immigration, the White House border czar said Thursday.

Tom Homan claims that the U.S. southern border is the most secure it has ever been, thanks to Trump’s presence in the Oval Office. But Homan insists that Congress must act if the results Trump is seeking on the border are to come to fruition.

“I’m not blaming one side (of) Congress, either,” Homan told NewsNation’s “CUOMO.” “We had the House and the Senate (during) the first four years of President Trump, and we got it again, and again we don’t (have a) budget.

“People say, ‘We need more (detention) beds, we need more money to remove these public safety threats and national security threats,’ but we still don’t have a budget. So, Congress needs to do their job, and they need to do it soon.”

As he has said since Trump took office, Homan again repeated that the priority in removing immigrants who entered the United States illegally remains zeroed in on those who are considered public safety threats and threats to national security.

How Trump is carrying out his immigration plans

Asked why the deportation goals can’t be accomplished without Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act, Homan said the president is committed to using every tool he has at his disposal to “remove people as quick as he can.”

Yet, while the number of illegal border crossings and migrant arrests is at a 50-year low, Homan told NewsNation that the number of deportations hasn’t reached the levels Trump campaigned on because the administration is “doing the right thing.”

“We’ve got limited resources, and so who do you go for first?” Homan said. “You go to the ones that are a danger to the public and the nation. That’s the smart way to do things. But that aperture is going to open up.”

Once migrants with criminal convictions and final orders or removal have been addressed, Homan says the priority will shift to migrants who were given due process through an immigration judge, ordered removed, and still did not leave the country.

Homan said that those migrants will eventually be deported under Trump’s plans.

“We have to execute those orders and get them out,” he said. “If we don’t, we send a message to the whole world that (if you) enter this country illegally — even though it’s a crime — you either show up in court or you don’t, but if you get a order of removal, ignore it, because we’re not going to take action on it.”

Why was Kilmar Abrego Garcia deported?

However, in the NewsNation interview, Homan pushed back against the notion that the Trump administration has ignored a judge’s order in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Garcia was deported to El Salvador last month due to an administrative error despite having a protective order issued by an immigration judge in 2019.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.

Administration officials have continued to maintain that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang and should not be returned to the U.S. Abrego Garcia remains in an El Salvador prison despite efforts by Democratic lawmakers who have traveled to El Salvador to have him released and returned to the United States.

Homan said Thursday that Abrego Garcia was removed under the Alien Enemies Act because he is a member of a foreign terrorist organization. While acknowledging that there “was an oversight” that led to Abrego Garcia’s removal, Homan said, “We did everything by the book.”

“He’s a bad guy,” Homan said, adding, “Here’s what people need to understand. Let’s say he came back. He’s going to be detained and deported the next day. …either he gets deported to El Salvador, or he gets deported to another country. But we believe we did the right thing. We’ll let DOJ argue it out in court and see where it lands.”