Incoming “border czar” Tom Homan said Monday that President-elect Trump's administration will step up workplace raids as part of a broader immigration crackdown.
The former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on “Fox & Friends” that workplace raids address labor and sex trafficking.
“Where are the most victims of sex trafficking and forced labor trafficking? In the workplace,” Homan told Steve Doocy.
But supporters say this approach is unlikely to help combat human trafficking.
“He's conflating traffickers with trafficked people,” said Heidi Altman, director of federal advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center.
“Tom Homan is skilled at using public safety rhetoric to justify vicious tactics that tear families apart.”
Homan, an early proponent of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents during the first Trump administration, said deportations as a border czar were “a public safety threat and a national security threat.” He said his priority would be “threats to security.”
But Homan said aliens who have been ordered deported “have become fugitives,” meaning immigrants with no criminal history but who receive a final deportation order are high on the priority list for deportation. suggested that it would be.
Homan told Doocy that the Biden administration has “lost more than 300,000 children smuggled into this country by criminal cartels.” This is in reference to debunked campaign falsehoods expressed by both Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. Report published by Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General in August.
According to the report, as of May 2024, 291,000 unaccompanied children had not received a court appearance notice, and an additional 32,000 received a notice but did not appear in court.
These numbers refer to approximately 450,000 unaccompanied children released by ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services between October 2018 and September 2023, many of whom were released during the first Trump administration. It means something.
“This is not a 'missing children' issue. It's a 'lack of documentation' issue,” said Jonathan Baier, associate director of research and evaluation for the Unaccompanied Children Program at Acacia Justice Center. told the Associated Press In October.
