Tom Homan’s Deportation Push Falters—So He’s Bullying AOC Instead
The New York Democrat tells us the White House relies on fear, not real enforcement power (EXCLUSIVE)
WASHINGTON—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told us Monday evening she wants answers from DOJ about Tom Homan’s supposed inquiry over the congresswoman’s ongoing efforts to inform migrants about their rights.
Homan is President Donald Trump’s ‘border czar’, an ambiguous role that reports directly to the president and is—at least, in theory—responsible for executing the White House’s hitherto flaccid campaign for mass deportations.
Deportations and detentions are down under the Trump administration, despite that Homan has swelled the ranks of this federal deportation workforce by pulling agents from other law enforcement agencies, like DEA, DOJ, and FBI.
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Even IRS agents have been reallocated to Homan’s deportation effort, but it hasn’t made much of a difference. In 2018, Homan quit the first Trump term to become a Fox News pundit and cash in on his reputation as an immigration enforcement guru.
“He used to be a solid operations guy, one of the best,” said an immigration agent working under Homan who declined to be named for this story, adding: “Now he’s trying to be this media influencer at the cost of the mission and the respect of a lot of his officers.”
This month, 63-year-old Homan began using his constant media appearances to bully the 35-year-old AOC, zeroing in on a webinar the congresswoman held to educate migrants about their rights.
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“Schools, churches, small businesses, neighbors, families, and everyday people have been clamoring for information and wanting to know what their rights are in the event that they are approached to be searched without a warrant or cause,” Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC’s Julio Ricardo Varela last Wednesday.
“They want to know what the law does and does not permit, and I am happy to present them with that information,” she added, a constituent service countless lawmakers, clergy, educators, and others, now offer in their respective communities.
For her part, AOC has vowed to continue educating migrants and other communities on their legal rights, and hopes Americans will band together to do the same. “Call their bluff,” she tweeted in response to empty threats and fear-mongering by Homan and other media influencers in the Trump administration. On Monday, we asked Ocasio-Cortez to elaborate further on her call to action:
Hallway Interview: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Pablo: What are some ways Americans can be calling Trump's bluff?
AOC: It all depends on what position you're in, right? But federal workers, for example, if someone's gonna threaten you and say, ‘Do this or we'll fire you’ and it's not something that's acceptable within your professional bounds, make them do it. You know, call their bluff. If they say they're gonna fire you if you, if you respect the bounds and authorities of your job, make them do it. They want to threaten me with the criminal investigation educating people of their constitutional rights, do it. Because at the end of the day, this administration is relying on the appearance of power. They are relying on the chilling effect. They are relying on people self censoring through fear because they don't actually have the tools to follow through with many of the threats that they want to make. And forcing them to do these things they know is only going to deepen their unpopularity with the American people and make them less capable of passing the agenda that they want. And so call the bluff: Oh they say they're gonna fire you? They say they're gonna open something? They say they're gonna…? Do it, do it.
Pablo: And when it comes to immigration, they're trying to produce policies to create daylight between allies and migrants. So what would be your message to both the allies and the migrants?
AOC: In the immigration space, this is one space where I think the actual person-to-person community care genuinely has a tremendous impact. We've seen Tom Homan go on television, and he's frustrated at communities that are more tightly knit and tightly organized because people have done peer-to-peer education, their circulating materials. You know, just a week or two ago, I got off the Amtrak and I went straight to Corona Plaza, and I was postering in bodegas and bakeries with ‘Know your Rights’ information, and guess what? They're, they're not as effective at breaking the law or trying to transgress the law when people are aware of what the law is and what their protections and rights are. And so, genuinely: that connective work, even though you're only telling one person, one family—especially in immigrant communities where we are very effective at disseminating information—it helps, and it really trickles up very quickly.
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