Alejandro Mayorkas | Michael Patrick Leahy

Former Acting Director of ICE Tom Homan Weighs in on the Facilitation of Cross Border Crime

Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed author and former acting director of ICE Tom Homan to the newsmakers line to discuss the motives of the Biden administration’s lack of law enforcement at the southern border and pending lawsuits.

Leahy: We are joined on our newsmakers line by our good friend, former acting director of ICE under the Trump administration. And like me, a native of upstate New York. The man from Watertown, New York, Tom Homan.

Homan: Good morning sir.

Leahy: Well, Tom, I look at this disaster on the border over the past, what is it now? Almost going on six months. And my question to you is, is what Joe Biden doing, is what the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas is doing, violating the immigration laws of the United States, is that an impeachable offense in your mind?

Homan: I think it is. Their number one responsibility to protect this country and protect your sovereignty. And they have abdicated their responsibilities to secure our border.

They’re ignoring existing law. What they’re working really hard at, they’re making illegal immigration legal. They’ve already told ICE they can’t arrest anybody for just being in the country illegally.

They are releasing people at the border without any court date. And now they’re talking about and in the process of reinstating the CAM project, where people can apply for asylum in their home countries, and we will transport them at the taxpayers’ expense in the United States to reunite their families.

It’s at a point where I actually wait for they cannot believe where we’re at as a nation.

Leahy: Tom, what’s the solution to this problem?

Homan: You know, we can’t wait for 2022. I’m involved with several lawsuits. With the state of Texas, they’ve got five separate lawsuits filed against this administration. I’m a party to four of them.

I’ve written more affidavits, against the Biden administration than I’ve written in my entire career against criminals. (Inaudible talk) I’m a part of the Arizona lawsuit.

So I’ve been acting as an expert witness for a lot of the state attorneys general suing the Biden administration before and they’re doing exactly what you said they’re doing.

Not only are they ignoring the law, we believe they’re actually breaking laws. One of the lawsuits clearly says in the statute in Title Eight of the United States immigration law says that ICE shall detain those convicted of certain drug offenses, those who have final orders of removal from an immigration judge, and those who have committed crimes in perpetude.

It says I shall detain these people. They’re not detaining any of them. They’re releasing them. And I’m not blaming the ICE officers.

They’ve been put in a tough decision by this administration. They were given a memo basically saying that you can only use somebody in the United States for being here illegally if they have been convicted of a serious crime.

So for some, it’s almost like being in this country illegally isn’t illegal anymore? And they don’t think that serves as another enticement for cartels.

Look, we’ll get you to the border and we’ll get you in the country, you can even lose your case. And you win because no one’s looking to remove you.

This administration, I said many times, isn’t mismanagement. This is incompetence and by design. This is what the border looks like.

Leahy: I think you are right. I think it is by design. Let’s talk about this character, Alejandro Mayorkas. He seems to be perhaps one of the most practice liars I’ve ever seen.

In other words, he tries to set forward an explanation, couched in legal terms to explain why he’s violating the law. What’s your take on this guy?

Homan: I don’t recognize him anymore. When he was deputy secretary, I was third in command of ICE back in 2014, 2015.

We had a similar surge, not this big, but we had a surge. He knows what causes surges, and he knows how to stop them. I’ve had over 100 meetings with him.

Leahy: You’ve had over 100 meetings with Alejandro Mayorkas?

Homan: Yes. Back in ’14, ’15. And we stopped the surge. How did we do it? We built detention facilities with over 3,000 family beds. 3,000 beds.

We tell people long enough to see a judge. And when a judge order to remove which 90 percent would be able to removed, we removed them.

The numbers went down. He’s doing the complete opposite of what he knows works. They are not detaining them and they are working as quickly as they can to release them as fast as they can.

They’re being released without a court date. And we can’t remove them because ICE can’t remove someone for just being here illegally anymore.

He’s done the complete opposite of what we did in ’14, ’15 when he was a Deputy Secretary on how to stop this surge. That’s what I’m saying. This is by design. He knows how to stop this. He just won’t take the steps.

Leahy: Would you say Mayorkas is a highly intelligent man?

Homan: He was a US attorney. He’s an attorney by trade. He’s not a stupid man at all. What he’s doing with these open borders is he sold out to the progressive left, just like Joe Biden did.

And they’re running that an open borders agenda and he is facilitating it. Here’s a sad thing. I’m 59 years old. We have the first president in the history of my life and I’ve been in immigration law for 35 years, and the first Secretary ever that is actively facilitating illegals entering this country. Actively facilitating cross-border crime.

Leahy: Now, let me ask you about this. What’s the motive here? In your view? You react to what really is right. You probably don’t look at motive that much.

But I look at this and I say, okay, who’s behind this? Is this Biden’s desire? Is it Mayorkas’s desire? What are they trying to accomplish?

Homan: In my opinion, the open border advocates have control of the White House.

I know for a fact, a lady by the name of Esther Olavarria is working at the White House as a senior policy advisor who is an immigration activist out of Miami.

She and people like her have hijacked this administration. Like I said before, Biden sold himself out to win the progressive left. He knew it was important for him to get the votes from the progressives to become president.

So he sold out just to become president. And I think about this all the time. What could actually benefit? Here is who benefits. All these people come across the border, millions of them are going to sanctuary cities.

What happens then? Well, Biden also overturned the Trump census, which means then I’ll be counting the next census. But what’s that equal?

It equals more seats in the House for the Democrats which leads to the Electoral College. They’re offering amnesty to millions of people.

They think they’re future Democratic voters. This is about Democrats set the stage playing the long game for perpetual power.

And I’ve met with 20 Republican congressmen out in Texas about a month ago, and I told them, you guys need to pull your head out of your butt and pay attention to what’s going on.

Leahy: You didn’t say butt, I’m pretty sure I did.

Homan: No I didn’t. I said, maybe you don’t care, but you won’t win another election in 15 years if you don’t wake up. The Democrats are playing the long game and you’re ignoring it.

Leahy: Yeah, I think that’s it. Let me ask you this. Mayorkas. Now you’ve been in with him. He’s an interesting fellow to me. I think he’s very, very clever, but totally amoral in my view.

I’ve never met him. But you said you’ve been in hundreds of meetings with him. Is this like a one on one meeting you’ve been in? Or meetings with like 500 other people?

Homan: Mainly one on one meetings and many group meetings. And I would tell them how do we ran into this surge in ’14, ’15 and what we need to do to stop it.

And Jeh Johnson listened to us. And they did it. Listen, Jeh Johnson when he was Secretary and Mayorkas was deputy, we built with their approval 3,000 family beds.

You never see them do that today. And the so-called cages and what everybody is screaming about and said that Trump built, no, those were built when Alexander Mayorkas was Deputy Secretary.

That’s why I’m saying he’s doing the complete opposite of what he knows works. This isn’t an accident. He is not the same man he was back then.

He believed in border security. He let us do things to stop the surge. You can’t name one thing. You can’t name one single thing they have done to slow the flow or to add a consequence and returns.

They just keep making things easier. They stood out on the national stage a month ago saying, hey, look, there is no overcrowding border trouble cities.

We’re processing these quick kids quickly and getting them out. That’s a success. You may call it a success, but I call it a failure.

Because the quicker you release people and brag about it, the more they’re going to come because they know they won’t be detained.

Leahy: Yeah, that’s my sense. You were an acting director of ICE for a period of time. What’s morale in ICE like?

Homan: It’s never been this bad in the history of the agency. I mean, last month, you said the lowest number of arrests in the history of the agency.

At the same time, we have a record number of people coming to that border and entering illegally. The lowest number of arrests.

They’re not allowed to do their job. And I said before, and I mean, this is I can put in one sentence. An immigration agent or a law enforcement officer can no longer arrest somebody from being in the country illegally.

An illegal alien gang member can walk up to an ICE agent today and say, I’m here illegally. I was ordered to be removed by an immigration judge last year.

I didn’t go. What are you going to do about it? The answer is, they can’t do a thing about it. They can’t arrest them. This is where we’re at as a nation.

The men and women of Border Patrol and of ICE truly feel the President United States has abandoned them. They truly feel that they don’t support them. The Secretary or the President or the Vice President won’t even admit there’s a crisis on the border.

Listen to the full first hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.

Attorney Kris Kobach Leads First-Ever Immigration Lawsuit Against Biden Administration on Behalf of Texas Sheriffs and ICE

Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to the newsmakers line to describe the first-ever lawsuit of its kind he is leading against the Biden administration by Texas sheriffs and ICE officials.

Leahy: We welcome to our newsmaker line our good friend Kris Kobach, the former Secretary of State of Kansas, now filing a lawsuit representing a group of Texas law enforcement officers suing Joe Biden’s administration over their immigration policies. Welcome, Kris Kobach.

Kobach: Great to be back with you.

Leahy: Kris, last time we talked was at the Breitbart Embassy where Steve Bannon lives. You had a little event there. We went and talked and had a great time. And hats off to you for continuing to fight the good fight.

Kobach: Well, thank you. It’s a really important punch we threw in the state yesterday.

Leahy: Tell us about the lawsuit, who you represent, and what you’re arguing about.

Kobach: I represent a group of Texas sheriffs as well as an association of ICE officers. And this is the first time ever that local sheriffs have teamed up with federal law enforcement officers to sue a President and his Department of Homeland Security.

And the reason that they are suing is that something extraordinary is going on. On February 18 a memorandum was issued within ICE, where basically, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ahead of DHS, told ICE officers, you may no longer deport basically everybody except for a narrow category of terrorists and aggravated felons.

You may not deport them unless you get special approval from your superiors. And it turned out that this approval was virtually never granted. And that violates three different federal statutes because back in the 90s Congress said, we’re sick of this catch and release.

We’re going to start passing statutes that take away executive discretion and say you shall deport people in this category shall deport people in that category. Like those who’ve already been deported once, and they reappear in the United States, people like drug offenders and people who have committed certain crimes.

And so basically, the Biden administration is ordering ICE officers to break the law. And it’s a pretty shocking state of affairs when it now takes a lawsuit for law enforcement officers to be permitted to follow the law.

But that’s where we are. And thankfully, the ICE officers and the sheriffs have stepped forward to do this.

Leahy: Kris, Crom Carmichael is in studio with me today, and he has a question for you.

Carmichael: Mayorkas is telling ICE agents to actually break the law. So there’s not a prosecutorial discretion type of thing here. He’s actually telling them, do not follow the law. My question is in a subsequent administration, is Mayorkis himself, can he be criminally prosecuted?

Kobach: Well, that’s a good question. I think probably the answer is no, just because you have sovereign immunity for people acting in their official capacity.

Carmichael: Even if they break the law?

Kobach: Mayorkis would say, oh, well, these lawyers at the Department of Homeland Security told me they drafted this well enough that it doesn’t really violate federal law. And that’s the thing.

I doubt that you would be able to prosecute the leadership because, of course, the memorandum in itself doesn’t use the words we are ordering ourselves, break the law.

It’s crafted in legalese and says, well, if you wish to deport anyone in these non-priority categories, you must seek pre-approval. And we’ve since learned that pre-approval basically never granted. Only in very rare cases.

Leahy: Can I ask you this question.

Kobach: Yes.

Leahy: I’m not an attorney. I don’t play one on the radio. But is this a memo by Homeland Security’s Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, an impeachable offense?

Kobach: You know, that’s a good question. Of course, the high crimes and misdemeanor words in the Constitution have been debated for centuries. I think at some point it has to be whether or not is it a crime?

And the answer to that is more complicated. It may not be, but it is. Even if it’s not an impeachable offense, it is so outrageous and it’s unconstitutional. We bring a separate claim, in addition to the federal statutes that are clearly being violated here, we also point out that it violates Article Two of the Constitution, which says that the executive shall take care to faithfully execute the loss.

There’s no question that’s being violated. So you have an order being given by the DHS Secretary, in effect by the whole Biden administration to not enforce the law, and indeed, to tell ICE officers themselves to break the law. Clearly, that’s not faithfully executing the law as our Constitution requires.

And interestingly, those words in the Constitution have very rarely been litigated. The Supreme Court has rarely spoken about them. It would be wonderful if this case did end up in the Supreme Court and if we finally got the court to say something about what that means.

Carmichael: What is the time frame? Because you’ve got people who are now being allowed to stay in this country, who are clearly dangerous and will clearly cause harm to Americans.

What is the time frame that this will wind its way through the courts and where the ICE agents will then be free under the law to do what they are legally required to do?

Kobach: That’s a great question. Obviously, as you and your listeners know, cases can take years. But one step we can and we’ll be taking very soon here is filing a motion for a preliminary injunction which asks the judge to say, look at this case.

There’s a good chance we’re going to win, we ICE officers and sheriffs. Please enjoin the administration from enforcing this policy anymore as this case is being litigated. Hopefully, we’ll prevail an emotion fulfill under injunction. We might get released within the next few weeks.

Carmichael: And then if you were to get that, then the ICE agents would be able regardless of the memo, we would be able to do their job.

Kobach: Yes, that’s exactly right. Let me add one thing here. I think the liberals or the people who support the Biden administration might be looking for some excuse and they might be thinking, oh, you know what? This is just a priority memo.

This is just the Biden administration saying we want you to focus on the high-priority criminals. That’s not what this is. This is a memo that says you shall turn loose onto the streets and people who commit all sorts of crimes.

And I just want to give you some examples which we site in our case. These are coming from the ICE officers. They have been forced to turn loose when they could have taken custody and would have deported them prior to this memo.

Rape of a child, aggravated sexual assault on a child, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, larceny, burglary, domestic violence, carrying a prohibited weapon, possession of drugs, resisting a law enforcement officer, and driving under the influence.

The list goes on and on and on. These are not minor crimes. These are illegal aliens who committed these crimes and now are being released onto the streets because of this ICE memo.

Leahy: Kris, I notice that you file this case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Now, it seems to me that if any judge is going to be right in the presence of this problem, it would be a federal judge in the Southern District of Texas. Do you think that your odds are of winning are better because of the venue you chose?

Kobach: The venue we chose was, of course, driven by the fact that these sheriffs are in the Southern District of Texas. The Texas federal district lines include sheriffs in the Southern District. They are in our group as well as the Western District.

So really it would have to have been brought in one of those two districts. But you’re right. The judges here can see the impact of illegal immigration. They can see the crisis firsthand. And so I think that may have some effect.

But, you know, at the end of the day, judges are supposed to be neutral wherever they are. They are supposed to look at the law faithfully, wherever they are. But as you and I know, sometimes judges can have a very different perspective.

Leahy: Yes, we certainly do.

Kobach: We hope that the judge here, we’ll see that this is a clear violation of the law.

Leahy: Kris Kobach, let me just say this personal statement to you. I salute you for your courage. I salute you for your devotion to the Constitution. And you have really been a true warrior for the side of the United States of America throughout your career. And I thank you personally for all that effort.

Kobach: Well, thanks for those kind words. I appreciate it.

Leahy: Kris Kobach, thanks very much, and come back again and tell us how this case proceeds.

Kobach: Will do. Take care.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.