Tom Homan says media rhetoric turned deportations into a bad word

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Border czar Tom Homan argued on Tuesday’s episode of “The Katie Miller Podcast” that common-sense border security was hailed during past administrations, but is demonized by current Democrats.

Podcaster Katie Miller, the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, asked Homan, “Why do you think American society has moved to saying that deportations are a bad thing when 20 years ago even Democrats were for them, and you were able to do your job so much more easily, deport tons of people without so much as, you know, anyone caring?”

“I really think it has to do with our president and the hatred for this president,” Homan replied. “They didn’t want to see this president succeed. And I truly believe that because I actually got an award from President Obama for removing the record number of illegal aliens. President Obama gave me an award because we removed 409,000 people that year.”

“What’s turned the tide is the false rhetoric, hateful rhetoric by the media, you know, about the inhumane policies of the Trump administration,” he continued. “That’s why I’m out there every day saying, ‘Wait a minute now, inhumanity?’”

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“Let’s talk about Joe Biden for a minute,” Homan began. “When he opened the border up, over 4,000 aliens died making that journey. Historic record. Quarter million Americans died from fentanyl that came across the open border. Historic record. Don’t talk about humanity. He was killing Americans and aliens at record numbers. President Trump has illegal immigration down 96%. Which means 96% less people are coming.”

Under Trump’s administration, he asked, “How many women aren’t being raped by the cartels? How many pounds of fentanyl isn’t getting in the country? How many known suspected terrorists [aren’t] coming to the country. Securing the border is the most humane thing you can do.”

Miller noted how hard it is for the typical working mom to look past the rhetoric of deportations and realize how normal and acceptable this work was in the past.

“You were able to go and deport these families, remove them together, you were able to do these deportations, and largely society thought that was a good thing,” she said. “You had Harry Reid on the Senate floor back in the ’90s saying that birthright citizenship was an insane concept. Why is it that society has moved so far?”

Homan replied that, among the many reasons, “I think the media has moved people far to the left because of their false reporting. I think the colleges — I speak from my own experience with one of my sons — that they move people to the far left. Look, I read the press releases every day. Ninety-eight percent of it’s negative, right? They misstate what we’re actually doing.”

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He went on to argue that the media and various politicians have normalized noncompliance with ICE, to the point it encourages violent clashes.

“But between the media and members of Congress who will spew lies about ICE, if anybody’s terrorizing immigrant communities, it’s representatives of Congress who say that, ‘ICE are fascists, they’re the Nazis, they’re the secret police,’ which is why I think some of the recent tragedies have happened,” Homan said.

“People think it’s okay not to comply with ICE now, because they’re hearing over and over again they’re not a real law enforcement agency. So you can impede, you can interfere, you don’t have to comply with them,” Homan warned. “I said yesterday — I took a lot of hate from the left — the recent shootings, as tragic as they were, if they simply would have complied with federal law enforcement agencies on the road stops, they probably wouldn’t be dead.”

“I don’t think they deserve to die, but if they would have simply complied with law enforcement, tragedy can be avoided,” he concluded.

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