Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan attacked presidential candidate New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s statements about ending detention centers during his Monday appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show.
Gillibrand stated that illegal immigrants “don’t need to be incarcerated” while awaiting a court date during her Sunday morning appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
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“It’s ludicrous. She obviously didn’t do her homework. She didn’t study the data. She certainly didn’t study history of illegal immigration. Look, the reason family units and children are coming right now in record numbers, unprecedented numbers, it’s because they know we can’t detain them all. Because of the 9th Circuit decision, you can only hold them [for] 20 days,” Homan began. “That’s why the numbers have skyrocketed. So her answer to that is detain less. That’s going to cause a surge like you’d never believe.”
He continued:
When politicians like her say things like we don’t want to detain anybody. She wants to support sanctuary cities. She wants to abolish ICE. When you have the open border attitude more people are enticed to come into this country illegally. They’re more enticed to put themselves in the hands of criminal organizations to come to this country. That’s why they’re coming. 93% of every person that ICE removed last year was removed from a detention bed. When you get released, chances are you will never be removed. Last year, 47,000 people got ordered to remove an abstention, which means they didn’t show up for court. Right now we are on the path to have over 70,000 in abstention this year. If you look at the people on the border claiming asylum, 49%, almost half, never follow-up with immigration court.
Homan later referred to Gillibrand as “not that smart.” (RELATED: Border Patrol Chief Agrees With Trump That There Is A Border Crisis)
As Homan referenced, illegal immigration has risen in recent months. April marked the second consecutive month where monthly apprehension at the border surpassed 100,000, a number that has risen every month this year.
ICE detention centers have been so overwhelmed with the released 100,000 previously detained illegal immigrants recently.