00:00Here with me now is President Trump's border czar Tom Homan. Thank you so much for joining me this morning, sir. I do want to start with that ruling. The judge ordered the administration to stop making indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area and denying detainees right to legal counsel.
00:17She wrote that, quote, roving patrols without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and denying access to lawyers violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
00:30Will the administration comply with this order?
00:35Look, we're going to litigate that order because I think the order is wrong.
00:38I mean, she's assuming that the officers don't have reasonable suspicion.
00:42You know, they don't need probable calls to briefly detain and question somebody.
00:46They just need reasonable suspicion, and that's based on many articulable facts.
00:50So unless she's in the officer's mind, I don't know if she can make that decision that, well, they're not using reasonable suspicion.
00:57How does she know that?
00:58I mean, every officer has to, you know, bring articulable facts to raise reasonable suspicion, and then it can briefly detain.
01:05I don't know how she knows that, but I don't think any federal judge can dictate immigration policy.
01:10That's a matter for Congress and for the president, and I know the Department of Justice is going to litigate this.
01:15We want to take it to the appeals court.
01:16Let's talk about that reasonable suspicion and what it actually means on the ground when it comes to ICE detaining people.
01:24You said in an interview this week that reasonable suspicion can be based on, quote,
01:28the location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.
01:34What about an individual's physical appearance would give immigration agents, quote,
01:39reasonable suspicion that they might be in the U.S. illegally?
01:43Well, first of all, let me be clear.
01:48Physical description can't be the sole factor to give you reasonable suspicion.
01:53As I said in an interview, it's articulable facts with an S.
01:57So appearance can be just one.
01:59For instance, if someone has an MS-13 tattoo on their face,
02:03that may be one factor to add to other factors to raise reasonable suspicion.
02:07I want to be clear about that, again, because my words are taken out of context.
02:11Physical description cannot be the sole reason to detain and question somebody.
02:15That can't be the sole reason to raise reasonable suspicion.
02:18It's a myriad of factors, and I can see it for the next half hour and give you all the factors.
02:23So every situation is different.
02:25But I can tell you this.
02:26Every ICE officer goes through Fourth Amendment training every six months
02:30and reminded what their authorities are for arrest, detention, and questioning.
02:33So the officers are very well trained.
02:35And so I look forward to DOJ litigating this judge's decision.
02:39I think she's making a decision while knowing what that officer knows
02:43when they get out of that vehicle to question somebody.
02:46So what that judge, same judge in the case, said is that an individual's race or ethnicity,
02:53the language they speak or their accent, their presence at a particular location,
02:58like a bus stop or a work site, or the type of work they do,
03:02does not qualify as reasonable suspicion.
03:05Well, like I said, these are factors that lead to reasonable suspicion.
03:12There's a myriad of factors.
03:13Every case is different.
03:15I'm not going to disagree with everything the judge has said because, you know,
03:18a location alone shouldn't have reasonable suspicion.
03:21It's a combination of articulable facts that an officer determines before he, you know,
03:27detains somebody for a short period of time and questions them.
03:31So, again, every case is different, different articulable facts from different people in
03:35different places.
03:36So, again, I look forward to litigation.
03:39I think we will win this on appeal.
03:41OK, so obviously you're appealing.
03:42But until that happens, the administration will comply with the judge's order?
03:47The administration is never going to go against the judge's order.
03:53We'll litigate it.
03:54We'll win it.
03:54Then we'll get back to doing what we're doing.
03:56I just want to ask more broadly and a little bit of a different sort of question here.
04:03One thing I have heard over and over anecdotally is that people who are in the United States
04:09legally, legally are scared about getting swept up in all of this because of the color
04:16of their skin, because they speak with an accent, because of the location where they might
04:20be going.
04:21And they're not going out.
04:22They don't want to be detained by mistake, have their kids or themselves traumatized.
04:27Are you comfortable with that?
04:31There's no—if they're in the country legally, they got no reason to be afraid.
04:35ICE is looking for those in the country legally, and we're still prioritizing public safety
04:39threats and national security threats.
04:41That's the priority.
04:42But like I said, you know, we do have collateral arrests in many areas because we're out looking
04:49for those public safety threats.
04:50But we're going to enforce the immigration law, too.
04:52I mean, it's not okay to be in this country legally.
04:54It's not okay to enter this country legally.
04:56It's a crime.
04:57But legal aliens and U.S. citizens should not be afraid that they're going to be swept up
05:02in a raid.
05:03We know who we're looking for, and that's what the agents are out there seeking.
05:08And again, they use a lot of information.
05:12Most of the operations we conduct are targeted enforcement operations.
05:15And when we go out, we know exactly who we're looking for, most likely we'll find them.
05:19Many times we have a criminal history and immigration history when we go out looking for that person.
05:26So if you're in a country illegally, you shouldn't fear ICE.
05:29What you should fear is that criminal aliens walk into communities and sanctuary cities.
05:32Well, but you just said that there are, quote, collateral arrests, and that is sparking fear in communities where people are, again, scared to go out.
05:47So I guess my question is, do you have compassion for those people who are seeing what's going on, hearing you speak, seeing what's happening in their neighborhoods, shouldn't have any concern, but do just because of the reality of what they're saying?
06:05You know, Dana, the bottom line is if you want, let's collateral arrests and let us in the jail.
06:10I mean, we want to arrest a bad guy in the safety and security of a county jail, but sanctuary cities, release him in his community, which means we've got to go to the community and find him.
06:19And when we find that bad person, many, many times, whether it's at a work site or in a community, they're with other people.
06:24Other people in the United States are illegally.
06:26And we're going to let ICE enforce the law, uphold the oath they took.
06:30We're not going to be like the last administration who told ICE, instructed ICE, you can't arrest somebody for simply being here illegally.
06:37They've got to be convicted of a serious offense.
06:39That's not what the law says.
06:40We're enforcing the law.
06:42But look, immigration enforcing, I'm going to be clear, immigration enforcing has always been emotional.
06:46It's always been controversial.
06:47I've been doing this since 1984.
06:49I get it.
06:50And I understand why people want to come to the greatest nation on earth.
06:54I get it.
06:55But we can't send a message to the whole world that it's okay to enter this country illegally.
07:00Don't worry about it.
07:01Even if it's a crime, come and enter illegally.
07:03And when you get an order of removal from a judge, you don't have to leave.
07:07You're going to become a fugitive and we'll never look for you.
07:09We've got to send a message to the whole world.
07:11There are consequences of breaking laws.
07:13And I think that's why, one of the reasons we have the most secure border in history of this nation today.
07:18It's just not because we've got boots on the ground on the border, not because we end in catch-release.
07:22A lot of it's consequences.
07:24You're watching what's happening.
07:25We're enforcing the immigration law.
07:27And I think that consequence has a lot to do with having the most secure border in the history of this nation.
07:32Let's turn to the raids this week on two cannabis farms in California.
07:37ICE says more than 200 undocumented immigrants were detained.
07:41The United Farmers Workers Union says multiple workers were critically injured.
07:47One, 57-year-old Jaime Alanis Garcia died after falling 30 feet from a greenhouse roof while fleeing ICE agents.
07:56That's according to his family.
07:59What's your reaction to that, somebody losing their life, running from ICE?
08:03It's sad.
08:07It's unfortunate.
08:08He was in ICE custody.
08:10ICE did not have hands on this person.
08:13But it's always unfortunate when there's deaths.
08:16I mean, no one wants to see people die.
08:19And, you know, they were doing the job.
08:23They were serving criminal arrest warrants.
08:24I mean, criminal search warrants.
08:26And I see the media saying what was an ICE raid.
08:28No, they were serving criminal search warrants as part of a criminal investigation.
08:33Involved with child trafficking, child labor.
08:36I think it was a total of 11 children that were found on that farm.
08:40And now they're being interviewed, forensics interviews, find out, you know, are the victims of trafficking?
08:45If so, who is the subject of that trafficking?
08:48And let's hold some people accountable.
08:50So it's unfortunate when anybody dies.
08:53I do want to turn to what is going on in Florida.
08:58And that is what the administration, what you call Alligator Alcatraz.
09:02This was visited by Democratic members of Congress yesterday.
09:06They were given limited access.
09:09And this, of course, was, is a new detention facility set up by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
09:16What these Congress people described was sweltering heat, bug infestations, meager meals.
09:23They say they heard detainees crying out for help.
09:25The wife of one man detained there said he's not been given access to a lawyer.
09:30He's been in detention for about two weeks.
09:33Is that acceptable to you?
09:35And is that what you're saying when you go?
09:36I have not been there yet.
09:41And I doubt a lot of that's factual.
09:44I mean, bottom line is, you know, from the day one, I've been doing this job since 1984, detainees complain about the conditions of detention.
09:52And I've said this many times.
09:54You can simply go to ICE.gov and look at the detention standards ICE has.
09:59They have the highest detention standards in the industry.
10:01But these same congressmen that are complaining about alligator alcatraz, you didn't see them complaining about, under the Biden administration, people being held in a Border Patrol parking lot surrounded by a fence in a sweltering heat.
10:13Not a word.
10:14You didn't hear a word about half a million children being trafficked in the country and them not being able to locate 300,000.
10:20President Trump, this administration, is finding thousands of those children.
10:23So, you know, they have a lot of anger under President Trump and how we're doing business, and they ignored four years of open borders, historic migrant death, historic Americans dying from fentanyl, historic numbers of women and children being sex trafficked, historic number of people on service was coming across the border.
10:41Silence.
10:41Silence.
10:42Because they're complicit because they didn't take the administration on and asked them to secure the border.
10:47You can't have strong national security in this country if you don't have border security.
10:52We've got to know who's coming and what's coming and where it's coming.
10:54But instead, they kept silent and they kept feeding the American people.
10:58We have a secure border, and we did not.
11:01Okay.
11:02Mr. Hellman, I know you have to go to catch a plane.
11:04Thank you so much for being here this morning.
