Tipsheet

Former ICE Chief Sounds the Alarm: 'This Scares the Hell Out of Me, What's About to Come'

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  April 18, 2022 10:15 AM

Former Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan said on Friday that according to multiple high-ranking sources, the federal government has effectively lost operational control of the southern border during the current crisis – a crisis that is expected to grow far worse over the coming weeks. In an interview on my radio show, Homan described what he says is a "dire" situation, even before Title 42 is lifted by the Biden administration next month: 

"The Border Patrol is overwhelmed. I have talked to several chief patrol agents. Of course, I’m not going to say who they are. They’ll get fired, but I’m good friends with them. Three of them told me -- three separate ones -- told me 'we have lost operational control of our border.' The United States of America has lost operational control of our southern border. 'We can’t control whats coming in. We’re overwhelmed.'"

Again, that's his assessment before the Title 42 expulsion tool is jettisoned in late May. "This scares the hell out of me, what's about to come," the career border official said. Listen to the full, alarming conversation here:
 
Homan said he's never experienced morale this low among US border officials, calling it "absolutely" the worst he's seen. "I've never seen it like this...As a whole, they feel like they've been abandoned by the president. They've been abandoned by their own secretary," Homan said, relaying sentiments he's heard from agents over the course of his seven border visits thus far this year. Homan called morale basically non-existent at this point. One bright spot, he said, are the efforts of border governors trying to do something in the absence of 'abdicated' federal leadership."[Texas] Governor Abbott should be the Secretary of Homeland Security. He's done more to secure this border than anybody in the [Biden] administration," Homan said. "Thank God" for Texas and Arizona, he added.

He also blasted President Biden and the White House for smearing CBP agents on horseback by falsely accusing them of "whipping" Haitian illegal immigrants last year.  Democratic officials pronounced themselves "horrified" by the bogus allegation, with Biden himself vowing that the officers would "pay" for what they did. Six months later, an investigation that was supposed to be "swift," per Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas, finally and quietly cleared the agents of wrongdoing. I addressed the disgraceful episode in this monologue, calling for consequences and accountability for those who wrongly spread the "whipping" lie: 

I'll leave you with the record-setting border encounter numbers from March, via Fox's Bill Melugin: 


That figure does not include the known and unknown "got aways" from last month, numbering in the tens of thousands. More than 80,000 of March's apprehended illegal immigrants were released into the United States -- enough to pack an NFL stadium. That's on top of the tens of thousands of aforementioned got-aways. As the White House Press Secretary said while snarking about Texas' enforcement maneuvers, illegal immigrants are "free to travel" within the US homeland after being processed and released by officials. This is a far cry from the vice president's half-hearted "do not come" message to illegal immigrants last year. Notice that fully half of the encountered migrants last month were sent out of America under Title 42. Starting in late May, that won't be an option anymore. Many of those people will simply stay, and their numbers will swell dramatically, thanks to the shockingly permissive new policy. 

The border crisis is raging as it is, with the high season arriving. This year's record-shattering high season will be supercharged by the cessation of one of the only enforcement tools left in the dwindling arsenal of American law enforcement. A full-blown disaster is coming, and it's an intentionally-caused disaster of the Biden administration's choosing.