Former Acting ICE Director Tom Homan: Biden’s Open Border “Scares the Hell Out Of Me”
Tom Homan, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation joined the Guy Benson Show to talk about the recent shocking illegal immigration numbers coming from the Biden administration.
Listen to the full interview below:
Homan had this to say about illegal immigration numbers:
“President Biden’s policies are killing Americans and Immigrants at record numbers… it’s sad.”
Full Transcript Below:
Guy Benson With us now here in studio in the Tony Snow Studio in the D.C. bureau of FOX News, it is Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE, and he is now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Tom, good to see you, as always.
Tom Homan: Good to see you.
Guy Benson We just got the numbers today on the June encounters at the southern border. And I have to admit, I was expecting them to be lower. Based on everything that the administration is trying to do to goose the statistics and sort of make this stat go lower, despite all of the smoke and mirrors, still almost 145,000 illegal migrant encounters across the southern border in the month of June. That is historically high. In fact, this is now 28 consecutive months of higher monthly encounters than the worst or highest month during the previous administration. So they’re blowing these numbers out of the water. And when you add it all up, we’ve got 7 million plus illegal immigrants crossing the border since Joe Biden took office. Before we get into some of the other games that they’re playing and the new policies that they’ve implemented and the terms that they’ve used for that new set of rules. Let’s just examine 144,571 encounters. Put that in context for us from last month.
Tom Homan: Well, 144 is is.. that’s not a correct number. I looked at the data myself. They’re not counting the interior port of entries. Other counties, for instance, Miami Airport bringin thousands a month. If you actually look at the numbers, actually 211. So the secretary is being disingenuous, saying these are total encounters. No, they’re not. Well, he gave his total southwest border encounters. But we got to understand, when he created CBP, one CBP, one app, and the four country pro program, they’re bringing people into airports in the interior, too, which are not counted in this number. So the Heritage Foundation, we’re talking this morning in relooked at the data and we pulled the data we believe is 211,000. But even at 144, like you said, it’s much higher than the Trump administration. And as I said this morning, foxnews.com, come one, may comment on the numbers. And I, I said it’s it’s it’s really disgusting when the secretary homeland security unlawfully uses parole policy to bring thousands through the port of entry to make it appear that illegal entries are down. Well, of course they are down because you’re taking tens of thousands of those people and bringing them to the port of entry and abusing the parole policy, which he knows is wrong. The secretary is a lawyer. He was a U.S. attorney in L.A.. He knows what the pro policy says. I’m not an attorney. He is by know how to read and what the policy says. I was ICE director for a year and a half. Normally paroles, I granted three.
Guy Benson Three.
Tom Homan: Paroles, three in a year and a half. And why were they? They came in to testify in the drug case. When they got done testifying, they got sent home. Three in a year and a half and they’ve done over a half 1,000,002 years.
Guy Benson Yeah. So this is the headline that I saw from CBS News. U.S. welcomes more than 500,000 migrants as part of historic expansion of legal immigration under Biden. Legal is what they called it. And here’s the thing. That’s exactly what the administration is trying to get that type of coverage, because under the parole program that you and I are talking about, they’re giving it a veneer of legality by saying, oh, well, they’re coming through legal ports of entry. That’s our new plan. You come through these choke points, we process them. We then allow them to come into the country pending some court date in the future, because that’s more orderly and done with a few pieces of paperwork where it’s not like people crossing a river, for example, or running across a desert. They’re almost treating that like quasi legal or just legal, as CBS News Court called it. That’s not actually the case here. These are still illegal immigrants, right? They are not going through the legal process to enter the country lawfully under the parole emergency provisions that they’ve implemented. Am I correct about that?
Tom Homan: Yes. And what they’re not telling you is a couple of things. Number one, those are released totally reports on ICE office some months is 20% show up, 80% in went some months ago, as high as 40% actually showed up. But never the majority majority do not show up on ice office for further processing. Second of all, the secretary is letting thousands of people in through this process to the port of entry, and he has the same data points. I have immigration court that in the last decade says this nine out of ten, nearly 90. It’s like it’s like 87, 86.9. Nearly nine out of ten people claim asylum at our southern border never get relief from U.S. courts because they simply don’t qualify or they don’t show up in court. They get ordered in absentia. What secretary also knows, based on his own Homeland Security Life SEC report, which is his report, it says this If you’re not in detention and you get an order removal, so that’s nine out of ten. You get order, move. If you’re not in detention, you leave like 6% of the time if. You’re in an ice bed. You’re gone 99.7% of the time. So two things you got to understand. Number one, they know the vast majority of people are committing asylum fraud. They don’t really qualify. They’re going to bring them in anyways and release them. And why?
Guy Benson The interior.
Tom Homan: Yes. And they’re arriving alien. The law is clear on that to arriving now. He should be detained. Shall be detained where the languages and why are they not? Thousands of empty ICE beds as you and I talking already paid for by the taxpayer. Why they’re not putting in those beds, why they put in hotels at 300 – 500 bucks a night because they know if they’re not detained, the 90% that was your case will never leave.
Guy Benson And that’s sort of the point. The incentive.
Tom Homan: That’s your plan. That’s your.
Guy Benson Plan. That’s what they’ve intended to do the whole time. Their problem was it looked bad, the numbers were high, the images were politically problematic. And you had flare ups in certain places, people out on the street freezing at night. The moment under the bridge with the Haitians, there have been these flash points of negative coverage. And it built to a point where it came to a head and they realized this is enough of a political problem. We’ve got to do something. So rather than saying we’re going to enforce the law, I’m.
Tom Homan: Going to secure the border.
Guy Benson Or Right, we’re not going to do security. What we are going to do is say, no, we’re going to herd folks into a handful of places, process them somewhat, sort of legally seeming so it appears less chaotic. Those people will still come into the country, the numbers will still be catastrophically high, but we can publish numbers like 145,000 instead of 250,000, because even though those the balance of those people are still coming in, they’re coming in a different way under parole. All that being said, I’m coming back to my first point, Tom, 145,000, after all of the games that they played, all the smoke and mirrors, that shows how big the crisis is. I bet you they expected that number to be a lot lower, but it wasn’t.
Tom Homan: First of all, let me say this. I’ve talked to a lot of folks, a Fox person. I do a lot of Fox shows. You clearly study this because you got this down pat where everything you said is right on the money. Thank you. But in addition, hundred 44,000, let’s talk about mortgage right now. It’s averaging 3500 calls a day, 3500 a day. That’s your average.
Guy Benson Pause. Pause was in June on average. CBP notices and tracks 3500 gateways every day.
Tom Homan: No. They’re catching 3500 entering illegally. Now, think about this.
Guy Benson How many gotawaysare there in a day?
Tom Homan: We don’t know. That’s a guessing game. But I can tell you, since he’s been in office, we’re at 1.8 million that we know of.
Guy Benson Tens of thousands a month.
Tom Homan: Oh, yes, absolutely. Okay. But think about 3500 a day. Illegal aliens being arrested. Under when Second Gen Mayorkas was the deputy secretary, Jeh Johnson, I can tell you this one, there is a thousand illegal aliens apprehended in a day. We all got called in, including me. Know what the hell we’re doing? About a thousand a day was a crisis. Now, that got 350% increase. It got 3500 mile workers causes a victory. So apparently he forgot. Wow. What a crisis really is because this is more than three times as much. But there’s no victory here. And I said this point, the shameful thing is the secretary of homeland security, he’s going to leave someday and he’s going to leave knowing that 20,000 border places, 20,000 ICE agents have zero respect in this man because he oversees tens of thousands of career law enforcement officers who believe in the rule of law. But they have a boss at the sector, Homeland Security, who misuses the statutes that were enacted by Congress. He makes pretend he’s the legislative branch. He’s going to make his own laws and ignore the laws already been enacted and signed by president. He’s going to be the most disrespected secretary in the history of the DHS, because I’ve talked to thousands of ICE agents and Border Patrol agents. They contacted me every single day. He has lost respect in the men and women that he commands. I’ve never heard it that happen to any secretary or before I became DHS attorney general used to oversee border joining us. It’s shameful. It’s shameful what this man is doing well.
Guy Benson These people signed up to enforce the law and to protect the country. And as I said, after this most recent data dump, we’re at over 7 million illegal immigrants crossing into the country on this president’s watch, which is, I believe, roughly more than seven times the population of the president’s home state of Delaware. This is almost a mind boggling, hard to fathom number. And within that seven plus million we’re approaching, you said 2 million who are just known got away. As we saw them. We couldn’t we didn’t have the manpower, the ability to go get them. They just entered the country illegally with no processing at all. And disproportionately, they’re going to be more dangerous people within those groups because they want to get away. There’s also an unknown universe of unknown gateways as well. So the number is definitely higher than 7 million. That’s just since Biden took office in 2021 and we’re in mid 2023. That really says it all. And I understand maybe the administration is taking a victory lap because politically they’ve got the news media off their back for the most part. But the problem, the crisis, the incentives, it is all completely, totally unchanged right now. It’s just it’s it’s the same it’s as bad as it has been. It just looks a little bit better in terms of certain cameras and the numbers are counted a little bit differently. Right. I mean, that’s the upshot.
Tom Homan: The thing that bothers me the most after doing this for 34 years is this I told you I only got about 1.1. 8 million known got away. These are recorded on sensor traffic, drone traffic, camera traffic. Right. Why did 1.8 million people choose to pay more to the cartels to get away? You pay a certain amount. Just cross the river and turn yourself in. You paid a higher amount to get to Chicago and New York and not be arrested. Why did at 1.8 million people choose to do that? Why not take a get processed by border patrol, get flown to the city of your choice on taxpayer dime. Get work authorization for 5 to 7 years of being how long for immigration?
Guy Benson A pretty great deal.
Tom Homan: And for the nine or ten that lose your case. They’re never going to remove. The secretary also told ICE being in the country illegally on his own is not enough for to go make an arrest. So these people lose your case. Don’t run for them. Why would you not pay less to take advantage that giveaway program? One reason you don’t want to be fingerprinted, you don’t want to be vetted. So a lot of that 1.8 million are going to be gang members, are going to be trafficked. Victims are going to be criminals. Border patrol arrested over 86,000 criminals last year, committed crimes that they arrested that actually they caught. But here’s the biggest concern. DHS is arrested, I think at last count, 237 people on a terrorist watch list. If you don’t think a single one of that 1.8 million then come from the country sponsors terror and didn’t come, this country was harmed, then you’re an idiot for ignoring the dead data that scares the hell out of me.
Guy Benson Well, here’s what also scares me about the got aways number For the reason that you just articulated so well. The reason people would spend that extra money and go through extra turmoil in order to maximize their chances of not getting caught and encountered because of all the incentives that you laid out to get caught and processed and released. If you’re avoiding all of that. It’s likely that in many of those cases it’s because you realize your rap sheet, your history, any vetting will put you on the fast track to deportation. And you don’t want that. You want to enter this country. And that’s why you go through these hoops and the rigamarole and the money, the personal expense to not get caught, let’s just say, to put a very lowball number on it. Let’s just say of the 1.8 million. 10% of them had some sort of serious concerning record. I bet you it’s more. But let’s just say it’s 10% to 980,000 people with serious criminal track records or other dubious and concerning ties entering this country, totally uncut, unmolested since Joe Biden took office. And they look at this and call it a success. I do want to get your reaction to one other thing that I saw just in the last couple of days, Tom. There was an incident at the border in Texas where I believe a pregnant woman got caught up in some of the barbed wire. And this was widely covered. Look at this brutal, inhumane thing that the people in Texas and the government’s doing down there. Here’s a pregnant woman who was stuck in this horrible fencing that they’ve put up. The counterpoint from Texas is that we put up the fencing to not just repel illegal immigrants, but to disincentivize river crossings because there have been people drowning in the river. It just seems like in a lot of the media and certain activists and narratives that are foisted upon the country, anything resembling deterrence or enforcement is framed as inhumane. But allowing people or incentivizing people to potentially drown in a river. That sort of gets papered over or not even really mentioned. I don’t see how that flies. I don’t see how that follows.
Tom Homan: It doesn’t. And look, it’s unfortunate she got hurt. She got hurt committing a crime that’s illegal that United States without. Not through a port of entry. It’s a misdemeanor on first offense, if you get deported is actually a felony. She’s breaking the law. Bottom line, I can’t blame anybody I want from the greatest nation on Earth. But your first act shouldn’t be violating laws and disrespecting this country. But you’re exactly right. What Governor Abbott has saved so many lives by taking border security serious. Since Biden has been president and no one talks about this. Over 1700 migrants have died on U.S. soil. A historic record. They die every day. Enormous trauma under President Trump to see President Trump home and your races, your policies were inhumane. Really? Because when Trump had illegal immigration on 83%, which means 83% less people are coming. If you take 83% of the cars on the highways will be less highway less IMO. Illegal immigration not 80%. If 83% less people are coming. How many women weren’t being raped by the cartels? How many people are drowning or dying across the desert? How many Americans weren’t dying from fat? And all forms cross that border because Border Patrol so overwhelmed the humanitarian crisis. They can’t patrol the border that’s used to. President Biden’s powers are killing Americans and killing migrants at record numbers.
Guy Benson That’s a huge magnet, this powerful magnet. And they call that humane and they call, again, deterrence and enforcement inhumane. It’s completely backwards and it’s done entirely for political reasons. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of it. And every so often, we should probably do it more. We have this conversation and we talk about the reality. We look at the numbers for what they are on the Guy Benson show because someone has to. Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE, now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation here in studio with us. Tom, thank you.
