by Nick Givas
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director Tom Homan blamed Democrats for loopholes that allow illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. indefinitely.
“The numbers are up on family units — and look, the president is 100 percent accurate on this. As ICE director, I went to the hill many times to talk to lawmakers about closing those loopholes,” Homan said on “Fox & Friends” Thursday.
“The two biggest loopholes is asylum — threshold is so low you’ve just got to say a couple magic words that the criminal organizations teach you to say and you get into the United States and you get released from custody, because of the second issue. The second loophole is … we can’t detain families for more than 20 days. That’s not quick enough to see a judge,” he continued.
Homan said many illegal immigrants are told how they can beat the system and exploit the loopholes in order to bypass any vetting processes or restrictions and have no incentive to leave.
“There’s no consequence, there’s no deterrence. You’re going to get in. You’re going to get released, never to show up in court. Why would they stop coming?”
“This issue, this caravan issue, lays at the feet of the Democratic Party up on the hill,” he said. “Like I said, they’ve been educated what these loopholes are. But they don’t want to close the loopholes. They want the president to have a fail on this issue. But I hope the American people are paying attention.”
Homan said President Donald Trump and his administration shouldn’t be held responsible for a crisis that was created by the Democratic Party.
“This isn’t the president’s failure. This isn’t the secretary’s failure. This is the Democrats’ failure because they know the issue and they refuse to fix it,” he concluded. “They’re putting their political ambitions ahead of public safety, national security and border control — simple as that.”
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Nick Givas is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. You can Follow Nick on Twitter
