Donald Trump named Tom Homan his border czar to oversee the mass deportation program.
But Homan encountered a problem from an unlikely source.
And Border czar Tom Homan had this tough conversation with Fox News.
Media leaks compromise ICE raids
President Trump wants Americans to know ICE is carrying out mass deportations of illegal aliens.
To that end, ICE allowed media outlets and prominent content creators like Dr. Phil to “ride along” on raids so they could report back to their audiences on the effort to roundup and deport illegal aliens.
But this practice looks like it’s coming to an end.
And it’s because of Fox News.
No reporter in America is better versed on the border crisis than Fox News’ Bill Melugin.
The border is Melugin’s beat and he knows the ins and outs of immigration policy, ICE’s operations and capabilities, and the consequences of opening the border to millions of illegal aliens.
Melugin was a natural pick for an ICE ride-along since he understands the issues at play and can authoritatively explain in simple terms how ICE is accomplishing the goal of mass deportations and who are the dangerous illegal aliens that ICE is taking into custody for deportation.
However, a problem arose during an ICE operation in the sanctuary city of Denver where ICE targeted 100 illegal aliens for arrest, but the illegal aliens ICE intended to arrest had fled by the time ICE arrived.
“Melugin reported that ICE officials said it felt like their Colorado operation was ‘compromised from the very beginning’” They were seeking to detain around 100 of the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua on Wednesday, but only ended up capturing one person. Officers raided an apartment complex that was allegedly taken over by the gang, but found they had evaded the area. Footage showed walls streaked with blood at the empty complex,” Mediaite reported.
Residents of an apartment complex ICE intended to raid taunted the agents.
“You a******! What the f*** is wrong with you!” one woman shouted. “Get out of our community!”
Tom Homan met with reporters following the failed raid and said the media ride-along would come to an end.
“Just because something leaks now and then, it’s not going to stop us,” Homan stated.
Homan explained that the fewer people who knew about these raids the safer it would be for officers as it would curtail the possibility of leaks.
“It’s all about OpSec, operation security, so we may have to stop the media ride-along because I’m not pointing the finger at it, but the less people that know about these operations, the safer this is for our agents,” Homan added.
Homan said he knew where the leak that compromised the Denver raid came from and that he would deal with it.
“I’m addressing OpSecs today, operation security, and how these leaks are happening. We’ve already identified how this operation got leaked. I’ll deal with that today,” Homan added.
Homan didn’t blame Melugin but hinted the leak came from someone on the Fox crew that accompanied the ICE agents on the raid.
“We can’t be having all of these different news outlets out there with us on raids,” Homan concluded. “Bill Melugin, great guy, but we’ve got a lot of OpSec issues we’re dealing with.”
