A former law enforcement officer and government official provided testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Wednesday, criticizing President Joe Biden over the unlawful migration crisis.
Tom Homan, who previously worked for both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), blasted the actions of the federal government due to the ongoing influx of unlawful migrants crossing into the United States from the southern border.
Homan said during his testimony that Biden is the “first President to ever unsecure a border on purpose,” as shown in a video posted on X by the Oversight Committee.
“We handed this administration the most secure border of my lifetime. Within months we went from the most secure border to historic illegal immigration. Numbers you’ve never seen before,” added Homan. “It is not because it’s seasonal. It is not because of climate change. It is not because of Trump. This is by design.”
Homan further detailed the crisis at the border, stating during his testimony that “the vast majority of these people will be ordered to be removed five, six, seven years down the road.”
“Thousands of empty ICE beds are sitting there right now, already paid for by the taxpayer. They’d rather release them because they know the vast majority will lose their case and be ordered to be removed. But if they’re not in detention, they won’t be removed,” he explained.
Homan continued to explain that the administration has come up with “lawful pathways” for unlawful migrants to remain in the United States without having to stay in detention.
“Where is the case-by-case analysis that is supposed to be done for people up for parole?” asked Homan. “It’s not being done. It’s a shell game. They move thousands to the port of entry so they can claim less illegal entries between the ports of entry. But it’s failed because, in November and December, we saw record amounts of crossings on the border.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently reported more than 300,000 encounters with unlawful migrants in December, which is the highest number of encounters in a single month, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The total number of encounters for the past three years has steadily increased, with CBP reporting 2,475,669 encounters with unlawful migrants in the 2023 fiscal year. There were 2,378,944 encounters in FY 2022 and 1,734,686 encounters in FY 2021.
Homan said that he agrees that people do have “the right to claim asylum” and “the right to due process,” but he noted that “due process doesn’t mean anything if the final decision of the courts is not executed and people aren’t removed.”
“So if it takes five or six years, they still must be removed, or the system means nothing,” he said.