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An Alpharetta restaurant was the venue yesterday for a Fulton County Republican Women’s luncheon featuring President-elect Donald Trump’s newly designated “border czar” Tom Homan. The former acting Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, introduced by the GOP club’s president and attorney Courtney Kramer, began by saying that in January he’ll have a White House office and will be “reporting directly to the president to implement his three big goals.”
The “three main priorities,” Homan emphasized, are: “Secure the border. Run the biggest illegal immigrant deportation program in U.S. history and locate 330,000 missing children who illegally entered the country. And I guarantee you some of these children are victims of sex trafficking and forced labor. They will be hard to find but we must rescue them and get them back to their families.”
“If we don’t do a historic deportation effort we send the wrong message to the whole world. Workplaces are a magnet for illegal immigration,” he continued in a brief interview with this writer. “We will have workplace raids. They are places where we have human and labor trafficking. We are going to put a stop to children working in these conditions.”
Going after criminal gangs, he says, are especially important. When asked if Atlanta would be a target to locate and deport gang members,” Homan agreed the city would be part of the operation plan. He specifically mentioned targeting the vicious Venezuelan illegal immigrant gang Tren de Aragua, which has now appeared in metro Atlanta. “My gang is bigger than theirs!” Homan summed up the operation, declaring that “every major city in the country will be a target” for raids by ICE teams to arrest and deport illegals.
When told that several Georgia sheriffs say that their local jails are about filled to capacity, Homan replied “we have a backup plan.” “We can use federal land and miliary bases (for detention centers) — and we have used them before. We’ll need money from Congress for this… but the president can also shift money from other funds to get started. I have faith that Congress will do the right thing. No one should be against this operation. Public safety and national security threats should be prioritized,” he said. “Congress will see we are first going after the worst of the worst. I think it will do the right thing (regarding funding).”
He was asked about targeting so-called “sanctuary areas” like Athens-Clarke County in Georgia. Homan replied that if officials oppose ICE coming in and arresting wanted illegal immigrant criminals for deportation, then the officials could be subject to arrest. “I won’t arrest anyone unless they violate the law. If you impede us as a local official, that’s a problem. Harboring illegal aliens is a felony. I have no problem arresting anyone who crosses that line.”
Homan attacked the Mexican cartels that are especially funneling the deadly drug fentanyl to every part of the U.S., saying thanks to “the Biden-Harris deliberate open borders policy Mexican cartels kill more Americans than all the terrorist attacks.” He vowed to “wipe the cartels off the face of the earth.”
The veteran law enforcement office, who Trump asked to come out of retirement to be the “czar,” also declared that the current policy of “catch and release” of illegals “ends on day one.”