Homan’s Argument: Excluding ICE from Jails Leads to Increased Arrests

On Tuesday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE Director under President Obama, said that Border Czar Tom Homan is correct that when sanctuary cities don’t let ICE have access to jails, it forces them out into the street and that leads to more collateral arrests of non-criminals.

Host Connell McShane played video of Border Czar Tom Homan saying, “When they force us into the neighborhood to find that bad guy, many times, we find others, others that aren’t a criminal target, but are in the U.S. illegally, we’re not walking away from them. … If you don’t want to let us in the jail, we’re going to have to go into the community and find them, which means more officers in the neighborhood, more officers on worksite enforcement, because we’re going to find that criminal alien. So, again, I’ll say it again, let us in the jail. More officers in the jail means less officers on the street.”

Sandweg responded, “I don’t disagree with Tom on this one. When you restrict ICE from getting into the jail, that does force the agency to go out on the street looking for these guys. I think the bigger issue, though, Connell, is, we pivoted away from those kind of operations. And that’s what ICE does very well. That’s what the men and women at ICE want to do. They want to get these bad guys. Look, this guy was arrested four times and had been ordered deported. He was on ICE’s radar screen, right? But we weren’t out there looking for him because…the administration has put ICE under so much pressure to round up larger numbers and pushing them out on these worksites and these farm fields. That’s just not where you find these guys. … Look, what I’m hearing Tom say, though, is we’re going to get back to some of those more targeted operations in New York City. I think that’s good because we’re all a little safer when ICE is focused on these bad guys first.”