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.
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 Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in the studio to discuss the influx of illegal immigration and refugees and how they receive benefits before American veterans.
(Border Patrol Agent Art Del Cueto clip plays)
Leahy: That is Art Del Cueto who works on the border there and is saying something obvious. The fact that people think, oh, it’s just on the border, they’re just having problems in the border state. And Texas to Mexico, Arizona, California not true. Those problems are coming every day to Tennessee, Andy Ogles, mayor of Maury County.
Ogles: I think the problem is that, yes, they’re coming through the southern border but then where do they go from there?
Nashville is a Mecca for illegals coming into the country, and policies that have been in place here in Tennessee are not being enforced and it has made us a magnet state for illegals.
And that’s a problem as we go forward and the notion that you can just call for hearings is preposterous. So you have a Democratically controlled Senate, you have a Democratically controlled U.S. House.
So what’s the purpose aside from just bringing hot cocoa and marshmallows, because that’s all you’re gonna get.
Leahy: And generating some video clips that mean nothing. On June 10, Governor Bill Lee and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds joined with U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, in calling for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing regarding the crisis of the southern border and an ensuing flow of accompanied minors to states all around the country.
This is from a press release from Governor Lee on June 10. Well, let me just begin. Senator Chuck Grassley, he’s not the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He’s the ranking minority member because Democrats control the Senate.
They’ve got 50 Republican senators and 50 Democrat. And because of the legal but not legitimate November 2020 election, Kamala Harris, who’s not into the border yet, is the deciding vote.
That’s why we’ve got a Democrat majority in the Senate. Is there anything more useless, Andy, than begging the Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on all the bad things happening at the border?
Ogles: Again, it’s a do-nothing attempt for a future campaign talking point. It really amounts to nothing. You’re not going to get anything out of this Congress. Now, that being said in 2022, I think we’re going to have a wave election.
I think it’s going to be similar to Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America, where we just swept everything. I think you can see that happening and building as you have more data coming out of Arizona and Georgia elections where you have more and more illegals and refugees coming across the border, that people are fed up, they’re frustrated and they want their country back.
And then on top of that, you have critical race theory where you have now it’s in our universities, it’s in our schools. There is no poll that can be accurate going into 2022, because when you have a group like Mom’s for Liberty out of Williamson County.
A county that is affluent. And when you have affluence you have complacency that tends to set in. And you’ve got a Monday or Tuesday where you suddenly have 500 moms who haven’t been involved in politics for a very long time if they ever were.
And they are mad and they’re mad at their legislature. They’re mad at their governor, and they want this crap out of the schools. And again, it’s critical race theory, it’s immigration, and it’s the election.
There are all of these things that are stacking on top of one another. And so when you have leadership, not taking action, not truly leading, that’s what’s manifesting itself across the country.
And even here in Tennessee. And so to your point, under the governor, during the Trump administration, at a time when there were fewer refugees coming into this country, The Tennessee Star did an article talking about refugee resettlement went up. 46 percent in the state of Tennessee. So we’re now a magnet for these refugees.
Leahy: And one of the reasons is because Governor Bill Lee when he was given the opportunity to say no by President Trump. And the Tennessee General Assembly had said they filed the lawsuit back in 2015, saying we don’t want refugees resettled here because you plop them down here, and then we got to pay for their health care, their education, et cetera.
We don’t have the budget. It’s a violation of the Tenth Amendment. Neither Governor Haslam nor Governor Lee would back that lawsuit. It was thrown out of the federal district court for lack of standing because a governor wouldn’t join him.
Ogles: And what’s frustrating as a county mayor and we’ve talked about this before. We have veteran service offices in most counties across the state of Tennessee. And so you have people who come here as refugees, illegals, or whatever their status may be, and they’re immediately getting services from the state of Tennessee.
Meanwhile, I’ve got veterans who have served this country where we’ve made promises to them to take care of them, and they can’t get services. I have a disproportionate number of my veterans who have mental issues. They can’t get treatment.
Leahy: American citizens.
Ogles: That’s right.
Leahy: Who served their country in the military and who can’t get medical treatment. And yet non-citizens, illegal aliens are given everything.
Ogles: Everything.
Leahy: Everything. And Governor Bill Lee is there cheering that on.
Ogles: Not only that but wave the flag. He’s out there with the little orange flashlight helping the planes come on in.
Leahy: Come on in! Come on in!
Ogles: But to the point of the plane, because we become so friendly to this policy and again, we’re choosing illegals and refugees over our veterans that we now find out that you have planes landing in the middle of the night in Chattanooga and Knoxville, and God knows where else in the state of Tennessee because we’re now a pass-through for this federal program.
And I’m sick of it. And this is one of those issues where you talked about, how me being this nice Southern gentleman or whatever. And just kind of being even-keeled. This really ticks me off!
Leahy: Well, see, now, this is interesting. The nice Southern gentleman is ticked off by something, (Ogles chuckles) but for good reason. I think.
Ogles: Absolutely. It’s infuriating that we have our veterans who have served this country. I can’t get them services. I have employees every day fighting for our veterans. Meanwhile, if you come here illegally, if you ‘can get refugee status’, we give you food and we give you housing, and we give you health care, and we give you all this stuff, hey you want a phone while you’re at it? But then I’ve got veterans who aren’t getting the services that they truly need.
Leahy: Now, the other thing about this is and perhaps this is Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit and constitutional law professor in the University of Tennessee, has said often we have the worst political class in American history.
And I have to agree with him on that. When I say the political class, I mean, the decision-makers who basically are in the business of creating press releases and doing nothing except getting reelected.
Why do we not have strong, courageous leadership in this state that will stand up to the usurpers of states’ rights in the federal government? Why is that? How did we come to that mess?
Ogles: I will say that we actually do have strong leadership who’s willing to take those stands. It just happens to be the Governor of Florida.
Leahy: (Laughs) Now, that’s funny. That is funny.
Ogles: What would Ron DeSantis do? I mean, that’s the question. If you’re a governor of a red state and at the end of the day, when you wake up in the morning, you should ask yourself, what would Ron DeSantis do today? And if you’re not doing that, you’re not doing your dang job.
Leahy: That’s a really good line. I saw wasn’t there was kind of a Faith and Freedom convention recently with Ralph Reid and his group. And they do these straw polls, right? And there was a straw poll.
They apparently had governor for 2024 Republican candidate with Governor DeSantis was slightly ahead of former President Trump in that. I thought that was interesting.
Ogles: DeSantis has come out repeatedly and said he’s not running in ’24 against Trump and that he’s focused on his re-election in 2022.
Leahy: Which is the right thing to say. But really, look, if you want to look at the survival of our constitutional Republic, the most important period of time actually is not 2024. It’s the next 18 months.
What happens between now and the midterm elections and do we fix the election integrity problems and do governors’ step up and push back against the violation of immigration laws?
Listen to the second 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.
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 Jackson County, Texas Sheriff, AJ ‘Andy’ Louderback to the newsmakers line to discuss the chaos at America’s southern border and the Biden’s administration’s denial of it.
Leahy: I’m excited to welcome on our newsmaker line. Our friend, Sheriff AJ Louderback from I guess it’s Jackson County, Texas. Sheriff, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.
Louderback: Thank you, Sir. I appreciate you invited me to say a few words this morning. Thank you.
Leahy: Well, look, we met two years ago in Washington, D.C., and had a great conversation there. It’s been a bad two years for border control, hasn’t it?
Louderback: It’s the worst we’ve ever seen in the history here at the southern border here with Texas. We haven’t experienced anything like what we’re seeing today from the effects of the policies of the Biden administration and the chaos and destruction they’ve created.
Leahy: Here’s my question to you as a Sheriff enforcing the laws of the state of Texas, you look at the failure of the Biden administration to enforce our federal immigration laws. And my question to you is, is this intentional on their part? And what impact does it have on you?
Louderback: Michael, it’s not just intentional. It’s strategic. It’s planned, it’s operational. It’s a very concerted effort. Probably a year or more prior to there’s evidence of a year or more prior to the Biden administration taking office and anticipation of the implementation of the policy changes to completely gut the INA were more clearly done on purpose to achieve exactly what we are doing today and we see every day.
So this is not anything that is haphazard. They were told repeatedly. It was written by senior staff of CBP. And if you do this, this is what you’re going to do. There is ample evidence of that from the directors at CBP.
People have been there for 30 plus years, true experts in border security told this administration repeatedly meeting after meeting what was going to happen if they persisted in doing this to the United States?
Leahy: The Biden administration knew this would happen, right?
Louderback: Absolutely.
Leahy: So as a Sheriff there, what recourse do you have against a federal administration that is violating federal law?
Louderback: Well, not much. Really the first duty here for most of us is to inform. I mean, that’s what most of us are trying to do. When the American people are uninformed or misinformed we don’t get any results at all.
And we see the results of that. We’re in the informed stage right now urging governments, state governments, to go to work here and try to alter these policies or trying to get them to all these policies, which is exactly what Governor Greg Abbott is doing in Texas.
Leahy: Now, you mentioned Governor Abbott. There was a big press conference where he said, we’re going to build a wall of our own and we’re going to arrest people that come across it. Now, that’s a good thought. How practical is that?
Louderback: The complexity of finishing portions of the wall exists. The ability for the state of Texas to strategically place the resources necessary to start filing criminal trespass and the child endangerment charges would probably two most prevalent other than human trafficking, smuggling.
The state of Texas put a ton of resources and over a billion dollars dedicated to some different changes. And, of course, there’s a special session coming up legislatively that would go along with the declaration of disaster that he has done.
These things, we hope, will start to turn. And, of course, one most significant thing, Michael was the signing of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact in Arizona. So as these movements build, where we see more and more states coming on board, where federal policies are destructive to states, we’ll see where this goes.
But it’s obviously moving in the right direction for the rule of law and for us to try and have some recourse to the border issue and to the national security issue and border security.
Leahy: What does this do to the morale of your department and your employees when you see that you’re being undermined?
Louderback: Well, in our business, we’ve been under attack before the Biden administration took office. We’ve been subjected to all types of things, from the funding to qualified immunity to just outright racist attacks that every law enforcement officer in the United States is a complete racist.
Which is absolutely wrong. But we’ve got to keep our heads up. I don’t like falling into that kind of trap like that. We’re going to do our job here. We’re going to keep our heads up. We’re going to enforce the law as we know and keep citizens safe.
And that’s what we have to do. Yes. It’s demoralizing. It’s more demoralizing for the men and women of the border patrol working there. Imagine working there or any job that you had in the United States. It’s no different than a County Sheriff saying to his deputies I’ll tell you what? (Inaudible talk) We’re not going to accept any cases. I don’t want you to arrest anyone unless they are .20.
Leahy: We’ll just make up that new law, right?
Louderback: Yeah. We’ll just make that up. That’s a policy now for us.
Leahy: By the way, what did Vice President Kamala Harris say when she went down to the border and visit with you? (Laughter) That’s a joke.
Louderback: Yeah. Understood. She won’t go to the border. Going to the border with her, she’s obviously unable to find it would simply prove that there’s a problem there, and they don’t see it as a problem. They don’t want the American public to see it as a problem.
Leahy: They think we’re really pretty stupid, don’t they? (Louderback chuckles) Well, I know you are measured in your statements, Sheriff. I can say that.
Louderback: Let’s move onto other questions. Regarding the Vice President, I think it’s pretty obvious as to what’s going on here.
Leahy: (Laughs) Yes, I can do that. And we won’t give you a hard time about it. Jackson County. Is that right between, like, McCallen and Corpus Christi? Is that where it is?
Louderback: Just passed Corpus. We’re on the geographical major corridor into Houston, Texas, which is, of course, a huge magnet for all time. Whether it’s narcotics or human trafficking or human smuggling.
Leahy: You have what? 12,000 residents. How many residents of the county?
Louderback: We’re just under 20,000. Under 20,000. I remember that now. Have you seen an uptick in this travel going through your county by illegal aliens in the past five months?
Louderback: (Inaudible talk) The bailouts, the crashes, they’ve stolen vehicles, license plates, the increased methamphetamine, increased fentanyl. There’s not an agency around me that doesn’t have increased narcotic issues. The empowerment of the cartel has been done.
Leahy: Nothing says safety and security of citizens of Jackson County, Texas like a Biden administration that won’t enforce immigration laws. Right, Sheriff?
Louderback: Yes, sir. You got it.
Listen to the full second 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.
Photo “AJ Louderback” by AJ Louderback.
