Tom Homan fires back at Florida Democrat over 'ridiculous' ICE racial profiling claim
Border czar Tom Homan rejected Florida Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon’s warning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would racially profile Black Americans, calling the accusation "ridiculous" and insisting immigration agents do not target people based on skin color.
"We don't arrest people based on the color of their skin. I'm actually an equal opportunity deporter. I deported people to 180 countries last year," Homan said on "Saturday in America."
"I don't care if you're from Asia, you're from Europe or you’re from other countries. If you're in the country illegally, you will be deported, regardless of the color of your skin," he added.
Nixon, who recently won Florida’s Democratic primary, lists ending detention centers and abolishing ICE among her key policy priorities, arguing that mass incarceration and mass deportation are "moral failures."
She also argues ICE "cannot be trusted with the power it has" and that the agency’s "terror tactics" should be dismantled, according to her campaign website.
"It's just lie, after lie, after lie, to try to vilify the men and women of ICE," Homan said.
Nixon made additional remarks on a recent episode of the "QNA: Questions Need Answers" podcast, where she said Republicans are "literally trying to kill us" and further criticized ICE.
"Like, actually state-sanctioned violence. They’ve been doing it in the Black community. And they’re doing it even more so now with ICE. ICE is now a weaponized paramilitary force that is designed to terrorize us," she said.
Homan doubled down in defense of the federal immigration agency, maintaining that agents follow the law when conducting enforcement operations.
"That's a ridiculous statement," Homan said. "We don't racially profile. Everybody we talk to, we have reasonable suspicion of aliens to talk to them and to arrest them we need probable cause. That's what the law says. And that's what we do."
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The border czar blamed sanctuary policies for incidents of violence that have occurred during enforcement operations, like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was fatally shot in July as agents tried to arrest him in Houston.
Homan argued that the policies increase risks associated with immigration enforcement, saying they prevent agents from taking custody of illegal immigrants while they are incarcerated, forcing officers to instead conduct arrests in communities.
"What sanctuary cities do is not only... give sanctuaries to criminals, it makes the community less safe because they're releasing public safety threats back into the public," he said.
"It puts our officers at greater risk. It puts the alien at greater risk because anything can happen during a street arrest," Homan added.
The Department of Homeland Security similarly rejected Nixon’s racial profiling allegations, telling Fox News Digital on Friday that her comments are "disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE."
DHS also said immigration status determines who is targeted for enforcement, not race or ethnicity.