Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan accused 2020 Democrats of “pandering to the left” when discussing changes in their immigration positions.
Homan reacted during a Tuesday appearance on “Fox & Friends First” to several Democratic presidential candidates appearing to have shifted leftward on immigration enforcement over the years. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Vice President Joe Biden previously held more hawkish views on border security, according to old footage and quotes presented during the segment.
Unearthed video from 2006 of Klobuchar, for example, showed the then-Senate candidate calling for a fence at the border and deriding the fact that migrants were entering the country illegally while many would-be legal immigrants were waiting in line. Since that time, however, Klobuchar has become a vocal critic of President Donald Trump’s wall and has called for progressive reforms to the U.S. immigration system.
“She’s obviously pandering to the left who’s taken over the Party” Homan said. “Look, her position isn’t that far from President Trump’s.”
Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee’s Border and Marine Security subcommittee on Capitol Hill on May 22, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
“[Trump] wants to secure the border, protect Americans from those who crossed here illegally. [Klobuchar] said the same thing,” the former ICE chief said.
“She can try to rewrite history, but I think most Americans agree with her first statement that we need to secure our border,” he continued.
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The next clip showed Biden, during an interview with a Telemundo reporter in December 2019, refusing to apologize for the Obama administration’s immigration legacy, which included the deportation of three million foreign nationals. However, in an interview with journalist Jorge Ramos earlier in February, Biden did offer an apology for border-related actions taken during his White House tenure.
“Joe Biden can’t run away from his past,” Homan said.
“President Trump is using the same facilities that were built under the first surge in [fiscal year 2014 and 2015] with the families — the so-called cages. People want to call them cages when they aren’t really cages,” he continued, adding:
“They were built under President [Barack] Obama. Family detention went from 100 beds to 3,000 beds under President Obama, and President Trump is merely using these same facilities.” (RELATED: Warren Calls On Trump Admin To ‘Reverse’ Decision To Deploy Border Patrol Tactical Units To Sanctuary Cities)
“What Joe Biden fails to mention is many more illegal aliens were removed under President Obama than were removed under President Trump,” Homan said. “Again, he can’t rewrite history.”
Finally, the segment quoted statements Sanders made in 2015, in which he said that “open borders” would drive down wages for U.S. workers. Since that time, however, Sanders has adopted perhaps the most progressive immigration platform of all his rivals — calling for the decriminalization of illegal immigration, allowing in 50,000 “climate migrants, the breaking up of ICE and other proposals that would drive immigration into the U.S.
Homan pointed out that Sanders has been a lawmaker for a long time and accused him of not passing any legislation that would lead to the reforms he is asking for while on the campaign trail.
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