Trump’s border czar, a Catholic, outlines plan for ending humanitarian crisis

CV NEWS FEED // President-elect Donald Trump’s newly announced “border czar” Tom Homan outlined how the incoming administration plans to end the humanitarian crisis at the nation’s southern border, which has persisted throughout the Biden-Harris administration.

Homan, a Catholic, on Monday told FOX News host John Roberts that Trump’s second-term border policy has “three rails.”

The first rail is a “deportation operation” that “will prioritize public safety threats and national security threats” that “pose the biggest danger” to the country.

Homan specified that the administration will begin this operation “out of the gate.”

The second rail, he indicated, is to secure the border. 

“Lock that border down, end ‘catch and release’,” the incoming border czar added, referring to the controversial policy of releasing illegal migrants awaiting court hearings into the country’s interior – a policy that Trump has long opposed.

“The third rail,” Homan went on, “is we got over 300,000 missing children.”

“Over half a million children have been trafficked into the United States,” he said. The Biden-Harris administration “released them to unvetted sponsors. And they can’t find 300,000.”

Homan stated that, based on his three-and-a-half decades of law enforcement experience, “some of these children are in forced labor … some are in forced sex trafficking, some of them are with pedophiles.”

“We need to save these children,” he emphasized.

As CatholicVote noted last week, Homan has been open about how his Catholic faith informs his humanitarian approach to immigration policy.

“I’m not a politician, I’m a career law enforcement officer,” the soon-to-be border czar and former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director said during an appearance on a Catholic podcast four years ago.

>> TRUMP PICKS CATHOLIC AS BORDER CZAR <<

“I was raised in a Catholic family in Upstate New York and I’ve seen a lot of terrible things in my career,” he said at the time. “Securing the border not only saves lives in this country. It saves lives of the most vulnerable people that are enticed to come to this country with promises that can’t be kept.”

On Friday, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-CA, announced that she and her caucus will oppose the “mass deportations” that figure to be a key component of Trump’s border security plan.

“What we see is that mass deportations are going to have a negative impact on the U.S. economy,” she said during remarks delivered outside Capitol Hill, where she was joined by other Democratic lawmakers.

“Some of these people are doctors and are nurses,” Barragán claimed.

The following day, Homan implied while speaking to FOX News that he is not fazed by the congresswoman’s comments.

“Game on,” he told the network. “Shame on her.”

Barragán is a self-professed Catholic who supports and has consistently voted for pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ policies.

Although Barragán and many other Democratic officeholders often denounce the policy of deporting migrants that have entered the country illegally, the party has not always taken such a position.

While running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, emphatically declared that she believed there was a need to apply “tough conditions” to illegal migration.

If migrants have “committed a crime, deport them,” said Clinton, who would mount another failed run as the party’s presidential nominee eight years later.

“No questions asked, they’re gone,” she added.

Clinton outlined that if migrants are “working and are law-abiding,” then “we should say, ‘Here are the conditions for you staying. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes, and you have to try to learn English, and you have to wait in line!”

The crowd of Democratic primary voters erupted in applause at Clinton’s comments.