Race-Baiting Dems Smeared Me as an Heartless Bigot for Demanding Secure Borders. 3 Years Later, the Left Has Unleashed Carnage.

COMMENTARY Border Security

Race-Baiting Dems Smeared Me as an Heartless Bigot for Demanding Secure Borders. 3 Years Later, the Left Has Unleashed Carnage.

Dec 29, 2023 4 min read
COMMENTARY BY
Tom Homan

Visiting Fellow, Border Security and Immigration Center

Tom Homan, former Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a Visiting Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Hundreds of migrants attempt to reach the United States border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on December 28, 2023. David Peinado / Anadolu / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

Nearly three years ago, I sat before a Congressional committee and warned of a coming humanitarian and national security catastrophe on the U.S. southern border.

What is humane about the nightmare faced by unaccompanied migrant children even after they arrive in America?

It's no wonder city and state leaders—left, right and center—are demanding that President Biden do something.

Nearly three years ago, I sat before a Congressional committee and warned of a coming humanitarian and national security catastrophe on the U.S. southern border.

Today, America is in the grips of it.

“There's no downside to less illegal immigration,” I told the lawmakers back in 2019. “There's no downside to less illegal drugs. There's no downside to taking money out of cartels' hands that are murdering our agents.”

I recognized then, based on 34 years of experience as a Border Patrol agent and as President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, that Democrats were creating dangerous new incentives for desperate men, women and children to risk their lives to get into greatest country in the world.

Sanctuary cites that shielded the undocumented from law enforcement, free medical care and free college educations for the children of illegals were all magnets pulling the world's poor to America.

At the same time, Biden's White House was systematically dismantling Trump policies that secured the borders and blocked criminals and terrorists from entering the United States.

>>> Biden Wants Open Borders All the Way South to Guatemala

It could only end in disaster—and it has.

On Monday, 14,000 migrants rushed Eagle Pass, Texas—a city home to just 30,000—in just 24 hours. Border security in the region has collapsed and one cannot look at these migrants, huddled with small children, and not think that there must have been a better way.

I have sympathy for these people escaping poverty, violence and hopelessness. I didn't hang up my humanity when I put on the Department of Homeland Security badge. But I couldn't ignore the consequences of the Democrats' thoughtless actions.

Though for my testimony, I was called inhumane; a racist; a monster.

I was even smeared by members of Congress.

“I think it's important to really make sure that the jingoistic, bigoted testimony of Mr. Homan is called out as nearly completely untrue, as being an outrage,” spat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from her desk.

I now look back and say: No, Congresswoman, I am not inhumane. You are.

Just look at the carnage that you've wrought.

What is humane about a record high of nearly 1,400 migrant deaths on U.S. soil over the last two years?

What is humane about hundreds of rapes of migrants who travel north from South America through lawless stretches of Columbia and Panama?

In 2022, a record 250,00 migrants made this crossing. In 2023, that number rose to 460,000.

What is humane about the nightmare faced by unaccompanied migrant children even after they arrive in America?

Biden's Department of Health and Human Services admits that they've lost track of more than 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children placed with sponsor families. There are documented cases of these vulnerable minors being forced to work in dangerous facilities without proper protections.

And what of the lives of American citizens lost or upended by the flow of deadly drugs from Mexico?

It's no coincidence that fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S. have hit dismal new highs as an unprecedented 9 million-plus illegally crossed into America since Biden took office.

As a majority of Border Patrol agents are pulled off the frontlines—to mix baby formula in Border Patrol stations, ferry sick migrants to U.S. hospitals, or process their asylum claims—criminal organization exploit the gaping holes in America's security.

There are more than 1.8 million known “gotaways”—individuals who purposefully evaded Border Patrol.

Ask yourself: Why would 1.8 million people pay the cartels to sneak them in when they could simply turn themselves over to U.S. authorities be processed, get a warm bed, a hot meal, medical attention and transportation to the city of their choice?

The answer is that a vast majority of “gotaways” don't want to be vetted and fingerprinted. Many are either trafficking in drugs, weapons, human beings or have some other nefarious purpose.

During the four years of the Trump administration, U.S. authorities captured 11 people who were listed on the Terrorism Watch List. Under Biden, agents detained 18 individuals in the month of September alone. Today, migrants from over 160 different countries, including Syria, Afghanistan and Iran have illegally crossed the border under the Biden Administration

The bad guys know that the border is open. That should scare the hell out of each and every American.

It's no wonder city and state leaders—left, right and center—are demanding that President Biden do something.

Arizona's Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs has deployed the National Guard to the border to take “action where the federal government won't” to address an “unmitigated humanitarian crisis.”

In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill empowering law enforcement to arrest migrants.

>>> Alejandro Mayorkas’s Designed Failure at the Border Is Disgraceful

And nearly 2,000 miles away in New York City, Democrat Mayor Eric Adams, who has predicted the strain of illegal immigration will “destroy” his city, called it “baffling” that there has not been a more determined federal response.

Now, three years after I warned that an open U.S. southern border would unleash misery and death, the White House is finally willing to negotiate on border security measures.

They're reportedly weighing whether to make it more difficult to claim asylum and how to enable U.S. border enforcement official to turn illegal aliens back to Mexico.

To that I ask: Are these policies still racist and inhumane?

Apparently, not. In fact, they never were.

It's clear that the Left will play the race card when it suits them to silence and demonize their opponents and win fleeting political points. But I stopped caring what my critics thought long ago.

I go to bed every night knowing that I've tried to do what was necessary to save lives – be they American or foreign.

The tragedy is that these race-baiting Democrats took so long to recognize that for themselves.

This piece originally appeared in the Daily Mail