Tom Homan, who has been selected as President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar, recently announced that the upcoming Trump administration will deport illegal immigrants from Venezuela whether or not Venezuela decides to accept them back.
During a Sunday appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan, Homan explained the Trump administration’s plan to deport illegal immigrants from the United States following Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
Asked how the Trump administration will handle deportation operations regarding countries like Venezuela that refuse to take back illegal immigrants, Homan said, “Well, first of all, we got President Trump coming to the Oval Office, and he’s proven during his first administration, his leadership on illegal immigration was a game changer.”
Homan told Brennan that when he was the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), El Salvador was not willing to take back MS-13 gang members. However, Homan said it only took Trump “48 hours” to get the country to “take back their criminal aliens into their prisons.”
“And Mexico didn’t want to do the Remain in Mexico program,” Homan added. “But President Trump was able to get Remain in Mexico established in Mexico. He was able to get Mexico [to] put military on the southern and northern border. President Trump’s a strong president.”
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Contrasting the first Trump administration with the Biden-Harris administration, Homan said, “This administration has not forced these countries to take them back.”
Pointing to the second Trump administration’s plan to deport dangerous illegal immigrants over the next few years, Homan said there are “other ways” the Trump administration can conduct deportation operations if countries like Venezuela “don’t take their people back.”
“There’s other countries [who would] be willing to accept them,” Homan told Brennan. “We’re hoping that President Trump will work with Venezuela and like he did with Mexico and El Salvador, and get these countries [to] take them back. If they don’t, they’re still gonna be deported. They’re just gonna be deported to a different country.”
Homan also warned that the Trump administration will not be “held up” in taking steps regarding “public safety” in the United States and stressed the importance of prioritizing the safety of the American people.
“We’ve had too many young women murdered and raped and burned alive by members of Venezuelan gangs,” Homan said. “They need to be a priority under this administration. They’re gonna be a priority starting day one, and they will be deported.”
