OPINION: Former ICE chief warns border security is matter of life & death

Tom Homan, the former acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency under President Donald Trump, says, “The Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, last year, seized enough fentanyl to kill every person in America.” In an interview with Rebecca Weber, CEO of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), on her “Better […]

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Tom Homan, the former acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency under President Donald Trump, says, “The Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, last year, seized enough fentanyl to kill every person in America.” In an interview with Rebecca Weber, CEO of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), on her “Better For America” podcast, Homan put the blame on the “two years of uncontrolled immigration” under the Biden administration.

Homan is a 34-year veteran of law enforcement and has nearly 33 years of immigration-enforcement experience. He’s the creator of BORDER911.com, a website that is focused on border-security matters. As he put it, we’ve had two years of uncontrolled immigration, historic immigration that overwhelms the border patrol.

“Since Joe Biden’s been president, over 112,000 Americans have died from fentanyl alone. We’re not even talking about the cocaine that comes across the border or the methamphetamines that comes across the border … but fentanyl itself. This is why border security is important — because the Mexican cartels have killed more Americans than any terrorist organization… It’s America’s biggest national security failure... We’ve got to take border security seriously because it’s a matter of life and death,” he says.

Homan suggested that the administration seeks to minimize the number of illegals knocking at our doors but, he says, the fact is that “since Joe Biden has been in the White House, we [have seen]  just over 9 million encounters on our border.” In fact, he noted, that it’s happening not only at the Mexican border but at our northern border where illegal crossings have increased by as much as 800 percent. “We’re looking at 3.2 million total encounters including some 1.7 million so-called ‘gotaways’ since he’s taken the White House. That’s people we know about. How about the unknown gotaways, the people that crossed the border where there wasn’t technology, wasn’t a camera, wasn’t a drone. That could be another 1 million. The bottom line: millions of people are entering this country illegally.”

Homan went on to note that “rather than taking care of our citizens who are homeless, we’re taking care of those who show no respect for this nation. The first thing they did was enter the country illegally, which is a crime. Who wouldn’t come to the greatest nation on earth and simply turn yourself in, get processed, get released, get flown to the city of your choice, at taxpayer expense, get free medical care, get free lodging, and free food? When you offer that type of giveaway program, millions will come. The most vulnerable people in the world will put themselves in the hands of criminal cartels and be smuggled into the United States.”

Homan concluded, “Ronald Reagan said it best. ‘A Nation without borders isn’t a nation.’ Every country has a right to secure its border.”        


John Grimaldi writes for the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), a senior-advocacy organization with 2.4 million members. 

John Grimaldi: