Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s border czar defended the decision to allow immigration raids at protected spaces on Sunday.
Last week, Trump revoked longstanding protections barring immigration raids on schools, hospitals, churches and other protected areas.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” Benjamine Huffman, acting Homeland Security Secretary, said in a statement. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
Homan defended the move on Sunday, telling ABC’s This Week host Martha Raddatz, that MS-13 gang members could be hiding in these previously protected areas and repealing these protections allow immigration agencies to effectively execute their duties.
“What criminals are hiding in schools? Middle schools, elementary schools — you gonna to go into those?” Raddatz asked in a clip highlighted by Mediaite.
“How many MS-13 members are the age 14-17? Many of them,” Homan answered. “If it’s a national security threat, public safety threat and what, what you need to understand is that it’s case by case, name another agency, another law enforcement agency, that has those type of requirements, that they can’t walk into a school or doctor’s office or a medical campus.”
He continued: “No other agency is held to those standards. These are well trained officers with a lot of discretion, and when it comes to a sensitive location, there’s still gonna be supervisory review….ICE officers should have discretion to decide if a national security threat or a public safety threats that’s in one of these facilities, then it should be an option of them to make the arrest.”
Trump plans to ramp up deportation of illegal immigrants in coming weeks to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations. However, the potentially raids are raising fears in the immigrant community and some leaders are even warning American citizens to walk with birth certificates.
Homan dismissed migrant fears on Sunday, telling Raddatz, “the message needs to be clear.”
“There’s consequences of entering the country illegally,” he added. “If we don’t show there’s consequences, you’re never gonna fix the border problem.”
