Tom Homan: Closing This Major Loophole; 157,000 Children Found; Next Targets

Talk about a sniper in Dallas trying to shoot agents. They shoot into a van of aliens and kill two of them. Outside of Dallas, a group attacks one of our ICE facilities and shoots a cop in the neck. There's been more shootings than any time I can remember in the history of the agency. Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, says assaults on ICE officers are up 1,600 percent. It's a lot of the hateful rhetoric feeding the frenzy. A career law enforcement officer who's worked for six presidents, Homan is now overseeing the most aggressive transformation of immigration enforcement that America has ever seen. As of last week, we're just over 157,000 children found. The majority of the children were perfectly safe. They're with their parents hiding out. But many, too many, were victims of sex trafficking and forced labor. In this episode, he reveals how DHS is closing a major China-related loophole and what new initiatives to expect in coming months. I just had lunch with Lincoln Riley's parents last week. Listen to the videotape. She fought for her life for 17 minutes. She fought for every breath. That little girl didn't want to die. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Tom Homan, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Well, thanks for having me. You reported over 300,000 unaccompanied children, or the Office of the Inspector General technically has reported that, that were unaccounted for. I want to find out how many have been found now and their status. Just kind of an update. This is an area of great interest to our viewers. Well, under my administration, just under half a million were smuggled into the country. HHS was very proud of the fact they released them quickly. They weren't in detention very long. But the problem is they released them quickly because the sponsors weren't properly vetted. So out of that half a million children, they lost track of just under, I think the number is like 296, almost 300,000 children. They lost track of them. Once they lost track of them, they weren't responding to call-ins. They weren't responding to any sort of communications. They weren't hearing from them where they were supposed to be checking in. And they weren't looking for them, which is just amazing. So when President Trump came into office, the first day President Trump called me and asked me to come back, he asked me to do three things. Secure the border, run a deportation operation, and find these kids. That's three things he told me he wanted me to oversee. So we started looking at the 300,000 children. And I told President Trump on that phone call, securing the border, no problem. We've done it before. We can do that again. Mass deportation, no problem because we've got a target-rich environment because of the millions of people that came across Biden. We can get that done. The children will be the most difficult because they'll be tough to find because we'd have to count on the digital footprint of the sponsors, the information the sponsors provided, which we know wasn't good. We can find you. We can find me. We own homes. We own cars. We have credit cards. We can find us because we all have a digital footprint. Children don't. So when we finally got back in, we started pulling the information, looking at these kids, a lot of the information, the addresses, supermarkets, parking lots, churches, a lot of the IDs prevented were wrong names. So we knew it would be difficult. But under President Trump's leadership, as of last week, we're just over 157,000 children found. We got more to find. Over 20 have died. Some from natural causes, some from drug overdoses, some from violence. So we still got, you know, 140,000 right around to find. Now, a lot of these children that we're still looking for have aged out. They're 18, 19 years old. But as I told the president, just because you're 18 and 19 doesn't mean they're not in forced labor or sex trafficking. So we're going to keep running down every one of these leads until we find them. And when we finish with all the leads we have, we're going to do it again. So we're not giving up. President Trump has promised that we're going to look at this until the last day of the administration. And the American people have my word that we're going to do that. There was this nine-year-old girl that you spoke with that was trafficked on her way in. Have you spoken with her again? Do you tell me any more about her? All the border work I've done in 40 years, I've talked to many victims of smuggling and trafficking. And there was one time I spoke to little girls who was sexually assaulted making that journey. That was many years ago. I never forgot about her. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. You don't come across the border without approval and paying off the cartels. Cartels control plazas. If an alien smuggling group is going to run a bunch of aliens to a specific plaza, they better have permission and they better pay the fee. So a lot of women and children are sexually assaulted making that journey. And the last study I saw, there's several non-profit studies and said that up to 31% of women who make that journey get sexually assaulted. And that's 31% of women that admitted it. So you both know the number's probably higher, right? But the nine-year-old little girl, yeah, it broke my heart. I mean, that little girl's never going to be the same again. And that stuck in my mind. There's a lot of things that stuck in my mind over 40 years that makes me who I am today and why I fight so hard. I mean, I just left an event, victims of crime, including angel moms and dads. Angel moms and dad is the number one reason I came back the second time out of retirement for President Trump. That's why I fight, because I've seen some terrible things in my career. I've seen a lot of suffering. But children, I'm a father and that's why I fight so hard. And that nine-year-old girl from years ago is the reason I fight hard, because I know terrible things happen on that border. I know there's a lot of sexual assaults as a part of the fee for them to cross you across that border. So it's something I'm deeply concerned with and one of the reasons I fight so hard. I'm still around. After 65 years old, I'm still in the game. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. I've heard you tried to retire a number of times, but it hasn't worked out somehow. Well, President Trump asked me twice. I retired the first time as the ICE director. And the day of my retirement party was January. I had a great retirement party, hundreds of people there. It was the saddest day of my life. I say that because when you carry a badge and gun for 30 years, it's part of who you are. And I knew that day was over. I was no longer going to be a special agent. I was no longer going to be the ICE director. I was going to be civilian Tom Loman. So it was a bad day. I had my wife. I had my family with me. At the end of the ceremony, I was actually shaking hands with people that were coming. And my chief of staff, who was my chief of staff, said I had an emergency phone call in my office, my empty office, because I already boxed my stuff up. They were sitting in my garage. This is on a Friday. I already started. I already signed the contract with the company. So I was going to start my new job Monday. So my office was empty. I went up and took the phone call. And he asked me, he says, President Trump would like you to stay and run the agency. Because I was third in command at the time. And I told him it was a bad time because I just retired. He advised me, not officially, because he hadn't signed the paperwork. It's on his desk. So I asked for the weekend to talk to my family about it. And Monday, I just said, yeah, let's do it. So I came back. The second time was Trump 47. He called me. I think I was the first guy he called. At least that's what he told me. Again, I was out to dinner with my wife, sitting in a restaurant. Some phone's sitting on the table. It rings. And she looks at it and says, POTUS. And she looked at me and she goes, I don't know. He wants you to go back. And I went outside, took the phone call. And we had the conversation I told you about. Come back and help me do these three things. And I didn't hesitate because I wanted to be in the fight. After watching four years of what they did to the most secure border in the history of this nation, and unsecured it on purpose, which caused massive fentanyl to kill Americans, caused sex trafficking at an all-time high, record number of no inspected terrorists arrested at the border, I couldn't wait to come back. So when President Trump asked me, I didn't hesitate, came back. Going back to the angel parents, just for the benefits of the viewers that might not know, these are parents who have lost children to illegal aliens in some way. Tell me, you just came from an event you told me. We were at a, Todd Blanch, Attorney General, held an event for victims of crime. And a lot of families there, well, they had testimony for four or five victims. And I think three of the victims were parents who buried their children because they were killed by an illegal alien. A lot of angel families were in the audience. I recognize many of them because I've met and I'm friends with them. I just had lunch with Lincoln Riley's parents last week down in Georgia. So I'm very connected to them. That's the number one reason I fight so hard. So we just had an event. And you know what, no matter how many times you hear their stories, you can't absorb it without emotion. Because my worst nightmare is to bury one of my children. And they've been through that. And what makes it so difficult, it was a totally preventable crime if they weren't here, if the border wasn't wide open, if we didn't have sanctuary cities. Because many of the victims, these angel moms and dads, the illegal alien that took their child's life was arrested in a sanctuary city. But rather than calling ICE and honoring our retainer that we placed with them, they released them back to the street and they killed their child. So it was a difficult day. Every time I do this, it's difficult to hear those stories. But the reason I'm late to this interview by 45 minutes, because they want pictures, they want a hug. And I won't leave the event until I talk to every angel mom and dad in that room. They deserve the attention of this administration. And I give them all the attention I can give them. And I promise them, I promise every one of them today that I'm going to fight for them. I'm going to keep fighting for them. Even after I retire, I'll find something when I leave the administration to help them. I'll be involved some way, somehow, because they lived my nightmare. Now, of course, I know that one of your priorities was to deport the criminal illegal aliens, detain and deport. At least at the beginning, that was the case. Just to finish up this question around the children that were trafficked, what about these sponsors of unknown sponsors? Presumably, some of them are criminals. Presumably, some of them are traffickers. What can you tell us about that? The ones that we asked can improve their, either involve the trafficking or forced labor or misrepresentation, we prosecute them. I mean, a lot of these were multiple sponsors. You can have a sponsor who had 22 children. How the hell did that happen, right? And when we go find them, most kids aren't there anymore because they've been, you know, sold off a bit to somebody else. We hold these people. We can prove a case against them. We hold them accountable and we prosecute them. But not all these children. Like I say, the majority of the children were perfectly safe. They were with their parents hiding out because they didn't want the immigration consequences. But many, too many, were victims of sex trafficking and forced labor. Do you have a sense of how many were trafficked of these that you know? I don't have the numbers offhand. HSI's in charge of that. But, you know, one's too many. But there's been numerous victims of, we found some working, not going to school, working on chicken ranches or, you know, a marijuana grow farms or forced into labor, not being paid, not going to school, being sold off. And we've rescued many that are victims of sex trafficking that are involved with, you know, pornographic, you know, movies and being sold for sex. And in the greatest country on earth, it's hard to believe this stuff happens here, but it does. But it's a priority of this administration. And President Trump, when he came in, he says, you know, we're going to do mass deportations. He said his instructions were, but we're going to prioritize the public safety threats, national security threats. And I've been saying for almost two years, because some people say, well, you got to arrest illegal aliens, too. Yeah, we know that. Just because you prioritize the public safety threat doesn't mean you forget about everybody else. But if you have a child predator here and someone that overstayed the visa here, you can get him first, then you get him. So right now, the number is about 60, 40, 60 percent, 60, 64 percent of everybody we arrest is a criminal. The other 40 percent are non-criminals. I like that percentage. I would rather have more criminals than non-criminals because they're the biggest threat to our communities and our neighborhoods. So I like that. I like that mix. So just to be clear, about 64 percent are people that committed criminal acts and the others, the others are overstays. Our definition of criminals, you got a criminal conviction or you're pending criminal charges, which means we found them in the jail or a jail, which most likely means you're not a choir boy. If they're arrested for a crime or convicted of a crime, we classify them as criminals. The other 40 percent are non-criminals. But a lot of those non-criminals are gang members who don't have a criminal history or have not yet been charged with a crime. Some are traffickers, have not yet been prosecuted. So I like the mix. I think that's good. I mean, people say, well, you know, you need to arrest more non-criminals. Well, we are. I mean, there's a lot of false information out there. People want us to do more. I want to do more. I mean, in June of this year, ICE arrested more illegal aliens than any time in the history of the agency. They broke a historic record in June. July, they broke June. August, they broke both months records. I mean, August, they got a brand new historic record. September is looking pretty damn good. So they're breaking records every month. So we are arresting a record number of illegal aliens. And like I said, the percentage is about 60-40. So we're making a difference. And I want more. But we got about 2,000 more that are coming through the academy you can put on the street. But people need to understand, we're hitting a record arrest, historic records, despite the fact we have over 100 nationwide injunctions filed by radical judges that don't let us detain and deport people. We have over 87,000 habeas cases where some radical judge says you can't detain this person. Then, of course, they get released. Now we got to find them all over again. I mean, in sanctuary cities, of course, make it more difficult. So despite the sanctuary cities, despite the habeas cases, despite the nationwide injunctions put in place by radical judges, ICE is still breaking historical records. As DOJ continues to sue sanctuary cities, I'm confident we win. And that's going to open up the aperture more. As we bring a couple more thousand agents online, that's going to increase. So the numbers are historic now. I expect bigger numbers next year. I mean, this is also in the context Secretary Mullen just talked about a 1,600 percent increase in violence against ICE operators. 1,600 percent actual assaults. The threats against ICE officers are up over 6,000. 1,600 are actual attacks, assaults. The threats are up 6,000. Vehicle assaults are up 1,300 percent. We're using vehicles as weapons. And I blame a lot of that on the misinformation being fed by some media to the American people. There's constant lies, and I don't use that term lightly, lies, lies. ICE is arresting five-year-olds. ICE is arresting people in churches. ICE arrests somebody at a hospital or an elementary school. Since President Trump's been in the Oval Office, I dare anybody to give me one case, give me a name and a place where ICE has arrested anybody at an elementary school. Hasn't happened. Inside of a hospital, never happened. Inside of a church, never happened. The only people that violated the sanctity of a church was Don Lemon and that group, right? But they keep saying it. Let's talk about, you know, Delaney Hall, the most, you know, up in New Jersey. The governor, the elected mayor, members of Congress said aliens are being mistreated in that facility, which caused protests, which caused violence outside the facility. Said there's hunger strikes, people weren't getting their medicine, being abused. It all started because ICE arrested a father that went to the store to buy diapers for an infant child. We locked him in there and he started all the protests. I went up there unannounced. I sat in the cafeteria with the aliens and ate the same thing they ate. There's nothing wrong with that food. There was never a hunger strike. There were some aliens that weren't eating in the cafeteria because they were buying food out of the connoisseur, which that's your right to do. No one missed a meal. No one was on a hunger strike. No one was missing their medication. And the person, the victim, the people who called the alien a victim, was just buying diapers for his infant child, was arrested. It was all lie. We took custody of him in a county jail because he was in there under charges of domestic violence. But the false stories being pushed by the media, like just lately the shooting in Austin. You know, he was legally here. He had a work permit. He's just delivering food. He was one of those drivers that delivered food. And we shot him in the back and he's crippled. And we won't give him medical attention. No. He was an illegal alien with a final order from a judge says he must be deported. We were trying to arrest him. He fled. We had lights and sirens. You know, we noticed that he fled. And, you know, he was shot. But these constant lies, they obviously see some future political benefit of attacking ICE and lying about it because they think it's going to help in the future election. But the lie, I'm constantly, I spend most of my time on media interviews shutting down the lies. Is ICE perfect? No. You know, there's a 30,000 man organization. Mistakes will be made. But when mistakes are made, they're held accountable. But to vilify them every day for simply enforce the law and again, vilify the members of Congress. And I've told Congress this from day one. If you think ICE is a Nazi group for enforcing immigration law, what's that make you? You wrote the law. We're just enforcing laws you wrote. So, you know, so I think and I said the beginning of this administration, about a third month in this administration, all the hateful rhetoric was coming out. And I said at the time, and I wish I was wrong, that the hateful rhetoric continues. There's going to be violence and there's going to be bloodshed. And sure enough, we've seen it. You know, talk about, you know, a sniper in Dallas trying to shoot agents. They shoot into a van of aliens and killed two of them. I mean, then outside of Dallas, a group attacks one of our ICE facilities, shoots a cop in the neck, you know. So I blame a lot of this on the hateful rhetoric being pushed by not only mayors and governors, but members of Congress. And, you know, and I'll keep calling that out. I think that's one reason when you compare ICE to the Nazis and what the Nazis did, that emboldened some people on the far left and the ones who already had a loose screw, it emboldens them, it encourages them to take action. So I just wish they stopped. If the hateful rhetoric would stop, the masks would come off. If the hateful rhetoric would stop, there'd be less tragedy. I truly believe that. Now people are emboldened. Because they hear ICE isn't a real law enforcement agency. ICE are Nazis. They're not really cops. So now people are not complying with them. ICE pulls them over. They'll either run, they'll ram them with a car, because they feel like they don't have to comply with ICE. Because they're hearing from members of Congress, even, that ICE isn't a real law enforcement agency. You got people like AOC having, you know, teams meetings on the internet telling people, she calls it educating people on their rights. She teaches people how not to comply with ICE. So with all this going against ICE, I am not surprised of the tragedies. It's unfortunate. I don't want to see anybody hurt. I don't want to see the officers hurt. I don't want to see the alien targets hurt. I just want to enforce the law. But until this hateful rhetoric stops, it isn't over when it comes to violence. How would you respond to someone that, for example, understands that this Nazi moniker is some sort of, you know, gross hyperbole or whatever, and is unhappy with how many illegal immigrants are in the country, but would say something like, well, you know, shooting someone just because they're fleeing, that seems like an excessive force for this kind of an enforcement operation. They don't shoot it like they're fleeing. The policy is you don't use deadly force unless your life's in danger or life of an incendiary party is in danger. That's when ICE can use lethal force. ICE has been given, you know, tools to, you know, try to get the person to comply without use of deadly force. I mean, there's a continuum. They're training continuum what force to use to make that person comply. I mean, they just talked about ICE was, you know, ordering gloves that would give electric shock. People had a fit about it. They're a taser, handheld taser. Law enforcement cars are country carry tasers. That's just one more tool to make someone compliant so they don't have to go zero to 100 and go to shooting, right? So they're trained on using the least force necessary to get compliance. So whether it's, you know, a taser, whether it's, you know, hands on, the last thing we want to do is go to a gun. And like I say, again, the agency isn't innocent. We've had a couple of agents that are indicted for lying about incidents and they've been indicted. So, you know, one of the first thing I did when I got to Minneapolis was increase the internal affairs staff to make sure people that aren't doing things right, we hold accountable because we can't lose the faith in the American people that we're not doing things right. And when we don't do things right, we need to show American people we're holding these people accountable. So that's what we're trying to do. Just to your point, a pretty significant number of the people these agents have to go after have a criminal record or are, you know, thought to be criminals by other law enforcement. I mean, it feels like a pretty dangerous operation. I've been an ICE agent. I was a morbitual agent. First of all, I was a police officer, then became a morbitual agent, then I was an ICE agent for many years. It's a dangerous job. And for any member of Congress wants to attack them, I just want to put them in that position. I tell you what, I'll give you a badge, I'll give you a gun, I'll put a Kevlar vest on you. I want you to go arrest that guy who doesn't want to be arrested, who's not going to let you arrest him, and he's wanted for manslaughter. He's a gang member. He's with MS-13 or, you know, 18th Street Gang. Go arrest him. How many have the gut to go do that? I don't have the guts to do that, I can tell you. So, you know, it's already a dangerous job, but with the threats high as they are, the threat's dangerous. There's been more shootings than any time I can remember in the history of the agency. And again, it's a lot of the hateful rhetoric feeding the frenzy, making people think, you know, ICE are the bad guys. You have a right not to comply. And when they don't comply and something happens, right away they attack the ICE agent, which just emboldens more noncompliance. Again, I want to be clear, because people have mixed my words up on purpose saying, Homeless says you don't comply, you should be killed. Never said that, never will. I'm just saying noncompliance, if you would simply comply, there'd be less tragedies. You know, you can take judicial action, you can sue, do whatever you want to do. But I know if I get pulled over by law enforcement, I'm going to comply. That's the way it should be. If you think that stop, or that interrogation, or that, you know, that meet was unconstitutional or a violation of your civil rights, then take action. But you don't not comply. I just think that's a dangerous road to go down. It just sounds like you have a pretty high pressure job, given everything. That's an easy way to put it. Do you have like a day that you remember that was particularly, like a particularly rough one? Yeah, every time I talk to an injured mom and dad, it's a bad day. I'm a dad, I got two boys. My worst nightmare is burying a child. And when you talk to an injured mom and dad whose hearts are broken, life should never be the same. And you couldn't help them because the government failed them because they didn't secure the border. The government failed them because New York City decided not to honor our detainers and release criminals to the street. It's just their child is dead because the system failed them. Either the federal government, or the city government, or the state government failed them. Like I said earlier, a lot of these injured moms and dads, the murderer of their children were in custody before they committed that act. But because of sanctuary policy, because of politics, back on the street. Like I told you, I just had lunch with Lakin Riley's parents last week. The person that murdered their daughter, and listen to the videotape, she fought for her life for 17 minutes. Listen to that tape. She fought for every breath. That little girl didn't want to die. She fought hard. Imagine being her parents. That guy was in custody in New York City for a crime. And he was released right in front of ICE. That's a bad day. It's a bad day when I know more officers get hurt for doing the job. I get a lot of bad days. But I get a lot of good days. Because I think when ICE is out there making record arrests of criminal aliens, we're making this country safer. I think neighborhoods are safer. Crime rate is at an all-time low because of President Trump's leadership. And I give President Trump all the credit. Because it's his leadership made this happen. His leadership gave us the most secure border in the history of this nation. His leadership has given us a record number of criminal arrests in this country. His leadership has given ICE the tools and the money and the funding they need to enforce immigration law across this country. His leadership is why there's a negative net migration. His leadership is saving thousands of lives every month on that border. Under Joe Biden, 4,000 aliens died making that journey. Quarter of a million Americans died from fentanyl. Sex trafficking was sky high. Because President Trump has 97% less people coming. How many women aren't being raped? How many children aren't dying? How much sex traffic isn't happening? How many fentanyls are going to come across that border? That's a good day every day. But we win a lot. But when you find out about another citizen burying their child because of an illegal alien, that's a bad day. That's a day that you don't feel like you won very much. So we have good days and bad days. Overall, I'm proud to work for this president. I think he's the greatest president of my lifetime. People thank me for saying that. I'm a border guy. I'm an immigration guy. I'm a cop. No one's done it better than President Trump. Put the numbers on the board. I've worked for six presidents and 11 administrations. No one's done it better than Trump. The numbers prove it. The data proves it. So I'm happy to be here, working here. I take a lot of hate. I get hit pieces on me every day. I don't care. They just pour gas in my fire. I'm here for the right reasons. So you were saying that you had, you know, record removals the last, you know, increasing record removals the last few months. You think you're on track for another record this month? Yes. I think we're on track for record deportation. I think this month was the highest deportation one month we've ever seen. There's some naysayers out there saying, oh, you're fudging the numbers. I'm not fudging the numbers. I mean, every day when my detail, security detail picks me up at my home, I sit in a backseat. I read 22 pages of data. What's happened the last 24 hours? I get a report from ICE. How many people they arrested? I get a report from ICE. How many people were deported, removed? I get a separate report from the Border Patrol. How many people did they arrest at the border? How many did they arrest in the interior? And how many did they turn around? Border numbers aren't added to the ICE numbers. People say, oh, they're only breaking records. They're adding all the numbers together. No, Border Patrol does their numbers. ICE does their numbers. I report. When I got out there saying ICE made a record arrest in June, July, and August, there were ICE arrests. Border Patrol never knew they were here. The data proves record every month. And I think by the end of this year, Trump already beat Obama. Obama had the record 49,000 removals in FY12 when I was at ICE. I got a presidential rank award for distinguished service for removing that many people. Same people who gave me that presidential rank award now want to put me in jail because I'm arresting illegal aliens with record numbers under Trump. How this country has changed in the last decade. At one point, you get an award for removing illegal aliens by the Democrat president. And now the Democrats think you shouldn't be arresting anybody. And this is what I want people to understand. They haven't changed a bit. You would think after four years of historic illegal migration, where millions of illegal aliens were illegally released in this country, illegally given parole against what the statute says, you think they'd be ashamed that an open border caused a quarter million Americans dying from fentanyl, record sex trafficking, record number of known suspected terrorists being arrested. You would think they'd be ashamed and try to walk back four years, but they didn't say a word. And now what are they doing? They want to abolish the agency that's in charge of finding these people and removing them. They haven't changed a bit. They don't want us to remove these millions of people. They all conspire together to get into this country because they see some future political benefit with millions of people in the country. I've asked numerous people on Hill, Democrat, what is the downside on a secure border? What's the downside? Less drug trafficking, less alien smuggling, less sex trafficking, less known suspected terrorists. What is the downside of having a secure border? There's no downside on a secure border. What they did under Biden wasn't incompetence. It wasn't mismanagement. It was by design. You can't convince me of any of the reasons. They see a future political benefit, have millions of illegal aliens sitting in sanctuary cities, whether, you know, they'll be counted in the next census or whether, you know, they think they're future Democratic voters. But now they're upset because we're out there arresting them at record numbers. And I really truly believe they want, when the next Democratic administration comes in, they'll warrant amnesty to the millions of people that came in under Biden. No one's going to convince me of anything different because I can't think of another reason why that would happen. Explain to me why you don't want people entering this country where you've been ordered removed by a judge. Why don't you want him removed? They haven't changed. So I hope American people pay attention because don't forget the images of 12,000 people a day coming across the border. Don't forget the images of young children dying of fattening heart every day. Don't forget the images of Border Patrol pulling infants out of the water that drowned. Don't forget the images of Border Patrol agents giving CPR to children. The cartel threw in the river so the Border Patrol wouldn't catch them. Don't forget those images, you know, of 15,000 Haitians under a bridge that just walked across the border and were released. I don't want Americans to forget those images because what we're doing right now is trying to fix what happened. And we fix it by removing people who are not supposed to be here. And for those who say, well, you're going to be on that, you're arresting somebody that's here for 15 years, has two years of citizen kids, okay, so the message you want to send is cross the border illegally, it's a crime, but don't worry about it. Get order removed by a judge, don't worry about it. Have a U.S. citizen child and you're free. You get amnesty, the law means nothing to you. If that's the message we want to send to the whole world, you're never going to fix this. People are going to still put themselves in harm's way to come to the greatest nation on earth. If you come to this country in violation of law, you cheated the system. You can call them been here 15 years, whatever you want. They cheated the system. They put themselves in front of the line where millions of people are taking their tests, paying their fees, doing background investigations to be the part of the greatest nation on earth. They're sitting in the back of the bus now because people choose to cheat the system coming across the border illegally. And I said this many times, I take a lot of hate, you deported that person as a U.S. citizen child. That's not on me. If you're in the country illegally and you choose to have a child, knowing that child will be a citizen, if you choose that and that's your decision, that's on you. So if a parent gets order removed, parenting one-on-one, make a decision what you want to do. Take the child with you and leave them with a relative. I know this sounds cruel, but the option is allow that to happen and more people won't come take advantage of that. More people die, more women and children get raped. If you want to fix the system, we have to enforce the law. Again, there's a right way and wrong way to come to this country. There's a reason we have laws in this country. You need to abide by them. In addition to the removals, you also have these self-deportations or self-removals really, and those numbers are actually pretty quite significant. Self-deportations are actually increasing. I've looked at the numbers this morning. And why are people self-deporting? Because they know right now the border's not open. There hasn't been an illegal alien released from the border in 17 months. They know there's no open border anymore. You come to the border, you're going to be detained or immediately turned around. And one of the reasons we have the most secure border in the history of this nation isn't just because we stopped catching police, it's because the world's seen what ISIS is doing. We're out enforcing law without apology. We're going to enforce the law. We're going to prioritize public safety threats, but everybody's on the table if you're illegally. The world sees that. The world sees record arrests, record removals. So, and the message is clear, leave on your own, then leave yourself an opportunity to come back legally. Maybe you have a U.S. citizen child or something that can petition for you someday. But if we have to go through the process of arresting you, put you in front of an immigration judge and give you a deportation order, there are statutory bars that prevent you from coming back to this country 10, 20 years. So leave on your own, leave yourself an opportunity. And a lot of people are taking advantage of that. Plus, the government gave you a check to help you get on your feet when you get down on the CBP home map. It's working. And I think you're going to see a record of self-removals in the next two years because ISIS is out there and they're out there full force. And I think it's over a million already of those, right? Well, DHS is putting out almost 1.8. I don't see that many numbers. I mean, I go to the database, the database CBP home map, but there's a lot of people self-deporting that aren't reporting to the CBP home map. They just leave. And they're counted when they go south of the border and stuff. That accounts for the discrepancy. I was wondering about that. So a lot of people said, I'm just going to go home. And when they go home, they record going to their country. So how many is it on the app then? I don't remember. I think it's 1.4. But I know there's been over 2 million self-deportes. But a lot of them are, there's been studies done by independent groups that says they're closer to 2.5 million self-deportes because a lot of people simply don't use the CBP home. They just go home. So I actually had a meeting with the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Troy Edgar, two weeks ago. I told him we need to have a solid number on this. So we need to bring all the forces together. We need one number to make sure that we're being transparent. So it's a record number. It's well over a million. But I know the Department of Homeland Security put over 2 million. So we need to know exactly what that number is. It's hard because people that self-deport don't always go to the CBP home map. But we know we're making record gains. You can see it. One of the areas that the president has been quite interested is challenging this birth tourism that's in particular been used a lot. We've reported on a number of operations out of communist China to facilitate this. And of course, the SCOTUS decided that birth tourism is off the table, but Congress can make laws. And so here we are. And the president had an executive order targeting travel and visa fraud. And so how is that? Another reason why the most secure border in history is because we're shutting down all the loopholes and all the fraud that's going on. But birth tourism, I mean, to me, the biggest issue of birth tourism, first of all, it's a driver of illegal immigration. But the bigger issue for me is a national security vulnerability. Two of the biggest abusers of birth tourism are China and Russia. So we have millions of Chinese and Russian nationals going to have ability to vote in this country, run for office, because they're going to be U.S. citizens. I just think it's a national security vulnerability and we need to address it. I was disappointed the Supreme Court found the way they found, but now it's Congress's job. If you care about our national security, you need to address this. As far as the fraudulent, all the fraud we're uncovering, whether it's reviewing the refugee applications, do they really qualify for refugee status? Do they really qualify for parole? And one of the things I read just this morning, I look at the numbers, we have a record number of parole denials now because we're holding to the statute. If you want to claim asylum, you need to be escaping fear and persecution from your home government. Because your race, religion, political affiliation, or participation in a specific social group. If you're homosexual, some countries will kill you for that. But we're holding to the statute. So the denials on asylum are at an all-time high and they should be. Even five, six years ago, nine out of 10 people who claim asylum at the border ended up with the order removed because they simply don't claim it. They don't qualify for asylum. They're coming in for a job. They're economic migrants, I get it. But there's a loophole. If you claim asylum, you're going to be released. And it takes years to have a hearing. And by then, hopefully, they're hoping someone becomes president that's going to give them amnesty. Same thing with TPS, Temporary Protective Status. I've been doing this since 1984. I've seen very few TPS that were temporary. They go on and on and on. President Trump changed the rules. He said, look, temporary means temporary. Every refugee or every parole or every asylum seeker, we're going to look and make sure they qualify. They're going to go home. And that is one of the biggest reasons we have self-removals, people leaving. Because we're stopping the fraud. We'll go by letter of law. If you don't qualify, you need to go home. Because the asylum seekers, the millions of people that claim asylum, they're clogging up the whole system while there are actually a lot of people in this world really do need that protection. They really are escaping fear and persecution. And they're sitting in the back of the bus. Again, the asylum process was abused. It was welcomed by the Biden administration, just like the misuse of the parole policy was. I mean, think about it. They were bringing 30,000 people in a month to this CHNV program, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. Do you know a lot of those people didn't even come from those four countries? They're already in Ecuador or another 30. They have status in another country. But they took advantage and came out of that program. They didn't even come from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, or Venezuela. So we're reviewing all of that. And I think that's one of the reasons President Trump has such great success with immigration. That's why there's a negative net migration, just because we're simply enforcing the law. You know, that's interesting. I'm aware of some cases where, you know, of people who are actual asylum seekers, but are kind of caught in the, you know, these are massive operations that you're running here, right? She's talking to millions of people. I mean, the court says it's backed up. Another reason, another thing the Trump administration is doing, we're hiring record numbers of judges and speeding up hearings, you know. We don't want someone hearing to be out seven, nine years. You ought to have a hearing quick as possible. When you're in detention, you get a hearing within 40 days. If you're outside detention, it could be years. So I think we detain who we can. Could they get a hearing more quickly? Because the immigration court prioritizes those in detention, which makes sense. So let's build a detention capacity so we can, you know, have these hearings quicker. And that's what we're doing. Just on this birth tourism, to finish that up, in the Northern Mariana Islands, I've actually, we've reported on this quite a bit myself here. There's actually the one place in America where Chinese can go without a visa, and that's one of these loopholes that you mentioned. I don't know, are you guys doing anything with that specifically? We're all over it. Okay. I can't share a lot, but thank you for reporting. I actually saw that reporting. We're on it. I'll leave it at that. Okay. We're on it. It's being addressed. There is also this influx of military-aged Chinese males, many military-aged. You described it as, you know, without the coordination of approval of the Chinese government, this kind of wouldn't have been possible. Have you been effective of removals of these sorts? How are you addressing this situation? Yes. First of all, we're prioritizing what we're looking for. We're working very close with the bureau and intelligence community to find out who's a national security threat. But yes, we're making great progress on that. And I meant what I said. You don't bring tens of thousands of Chinese into this country from China. Well, the coordination of the Chinese government, it just don't happen. And I truly believe that. So yeah, they got a lot of attention not from DHS, but from DOJ and intelligence community. So yeah, we're on that. And I think, again, national security issue, right? When the game-changing thing President Trump did, all the government's on this. I mean, we do immigration operations, DEA, ATF, FBI. Border Patrol, ICE, we're all out there. Now that we hired thousands of more ICE officers, we need less of the whole thing to get back to the main mission. But President Trump's bringing the whole of government on this. When it comes to national security threats, all the government is involved to this day. And the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Task Forces are concentrating on things like the Chinese and the others that I think pose a national security vulnerability. Well, on that point exactly, I think, as far as I'm aware, at least, we had the first use of the Alien Terrorist Removal Corps, DOJ removed, and Afghan National. Can you tell me a bit more? Are there more in the pipeline with that? That's a tool that we're going to be using. It's the first time, at least in my career, you're going to see a lot more of that. One of the greatest things President Trump did was designate terrorist groups, designate the criminal cartels, terrorist, MS-13, TDA, the drug cartels. Again, it brings the whole weight of the government on them. We can attack them and play their way game with them rather than playing the home game, playing the way game. So I knew that President Trump was going to designate terrorists. The RNC, before the election, I said on stage, if President Trump becomes president, he's going to designate these group of terrorist organizations. He's going to wipe them off the face of the earth. I think we're working toward that. You mentioned earlier that you're hiring. I know that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, you actually got a cash infusion of it. I think it's $75 billion. That's what I have in my notes. But that's some good money. How are you using that? Hiring, more technology. I mean, overall, it costs DHS. We're building more border wall, faster, quicker, and cheaper because there's so much competition. Every mile border wall will be built by the time President Trump leaves office. The wall, when you say border wall, that's the full steel? Primary and secondary wall in some areas. But yeah, every wall that we plan to build that President Trump has directed to be built will be built by the time this administration ends because they're building it faster and they're building it cheaper because there's a lot of competition on that wall. We're sticking with the prototype. Some parts of the border, we're using technology more than one. You get the Big Bend National Park, you got cliffs. There's your wall. The cliff's higher than the wall, so they can't get up that straight cliff. Buying a lot of technology. Hiring officers was the biggest one, put more boots on the ground, and with that comes cars and equipment and real estate, office space. We're building detention capacity. I've said from day one, we need at least 100,000 beds and we're working toward that right now. I think we got like 77,000 in custody today, but we need more beds. We should have, if I had it my way, we have about 120,000, 125,000 beds and we're working toward that. So building more beds, having that detention capacity, putting more agents on the ground. Technology is a big thing. With all the technology available, especially on the northern border, the next two years, I'm really concentrating on the northern border. The southern border is the highest security we've ever had. Now that we have the money and the time, because southern border's most secure it's ever been, I think we need to dedicate more resources to the northern border, whether it's manpower, technology, infrastructure. I'm super interested in this, actually. I'm Canadian. I'm hearing a lot from family and friends north of the border, but what does that look like? You're saying you've secured the southern, now you need to secure the northern. What is the threat from the northern? In the last three months, I've been to every northern border sector out there. I grew up on the northern, I grew up on the Canadian border. I know the northern border very well, especially the northern border in New York. Where I grew up, and I still have a home there. Every sector's a little bit different on the northern border. Some want more boots on the ground, others want barriers, because rather than a Lake Ontario, or St. Lawrence River, it's a land barrier, they need drive-through barriers, they need some sort of border barrier. But they all want technology. They all want towers. They all want more drones, because there's hundreds and hundreds of miles of border that you'd have to hire 100,000 border patrol agents holding hands to go across that border. So a lot of them are requesting more technology and more infrastructure, whether it's drive-through barriers or some sort of border barrier in places that can't be patrolled easily. More air assets. And one of the biggest things is cooperation of Canada. I mean, I met with Canadian officials a little over a year ago, and we had a mutual interest in stopping cross-border crime, right? Some crime goes north, some crime goes south, but if they would dedicate resources to the border security and we dedicate more resources to the border security, we can work together on that. So I know there's some politics involved right now, but we'll get beyond that. We'll get past that. And I think we can work well with them. We haven't passed. And we'll get real close to some agreements, like shiprider agreements, where we work together and stuff. So that's still a lot of work to be done, but that's why the next two years I'm really concentrating on that because that's been, I'm not gonna say it's been ignored, but you send the firemen where the biggest fire is, now it's the southern border, but now it's under control when you start amping up the northern border. Because I think the northern border is a huge national security vulnerability. Well, so this is exactly what I want to touch on. It's kind of obvious to us, roughly, what the threats are from the south. I've reported on it ad nauseum. As Canadians, we just sort of imagine ourselves, why do you even need it? Where's the national security risk? It's just Canada, right? Canada's immigration laws are very lax, you know that. It doesn't take a lot to get into Canada. I believe based on my experience and based on intelligence reports I see, national security threats can enter Canada a lot easier than it can enter the United States to come to the United States to use harm. I also believe there are, I think drug trafficking goes both ways. Indian reservations on the border present a problem and we've been working with them trying to increase enforcement through the reservations. But they're a sovereign nation amongst themselves, so it takes a lot of negotiating. I think the United States and Canada both want, again, because I've met with them, shut down cross-border crime because it's not good for either country. I think we're both concerned with shutting down the criminal element, shutting down the drugs, and illegal immigration, especially those who pose a threat to our nations. So, I mean, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. Perhaps a final thought from you as we finish? We're not quitting. The media, members of Congress, can attack us all you want. President Trump's in the Oval Office based on his promise to secure the border and enforce immigration law, and that's what we're going to do. So it's unfortunate, the hateful rhetoric is out there, but they think we're going anywhere, we're not. We're going to keep doing this job. That's why American people voted for President Trump in the Oval Office. And despite all the negative press out there, this country's crime index has had an all-time low. It's not all because, you know, illegal immigrants, they're not all public safety threats, but we arrested and removed hundreds of thousands of criminals from this country that certainly had an effect on the crime rate. And every criminal illegal alien we deport makes this country safer, makes our neighborhood safer. I'm on a mission with the men and women of the Border Patrol and ICE to make this country safer. And you can't have strong national security if you don't have border security. We need to know who's coming in, what's coming in, where it's coming in, why it's coming. And by the time this administration ends, we're going to be in the best position we've ever been in. Again, today we've got the most secure southern border in the history of the nation, even better than Trump 45. Again, not a single illegal alien release in 17 months. Compare that to 12,000 a day coming across the border under Biden. Compare that to 2.7 million a year coming across the border on Biden. And just let me qualify that. You're saying that not a single one has been released, but you have people coming across. Some of them are noticed and then they become these gotaways. You don't have any of those? I just want you to kind of disambiguate this for me. When we apprehend somebody at the border, the Border Patrol's not releasing them. They return right around or they're being detained. Now is your gotaways? Well, yeah. Anybody thinks you can cover 2,000 miles of border without a gotaway? They're crazy. But the gotaway numbers are historic lows. I mean, you're talking went from, thousands a day to less than 100. And the good thing is Border Patrol's checkpoints are back up. We're shut down during the Biden administration. So we have northern checks. We're getting a lot of those gotaways. They got away from the border. They may get away from the border, but they're not getting to our checkpoints. So we're arresting a lot of them. But think about that. Up to 12,000 a day under Biden. Most released in the United States. Now we're releasing nobody in the United States. And we're tracking a small group of gotaways where they come. We're attaching additional resources, whether it's Department of War resources or other Border Patrol from other sectors coming in. So every place we see a civ, we're plugging it right away. So most secure border ever. And the data proves it. Well, Tom Holman, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. All right. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you all for joining Border Tsar Tom Holman and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.