(NewsNation) — Federal immigration raids have increased across the nation under the Trump administration, reaching communities from rural towns to major cities.
White House border czar Tom Homan told “Morning in America” on Tuesday there’s a “false narrative” surrounding the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“The false narrative is we’re arresting innocent people, we’re disappearing people, we’re kidnapping people,” he said.
NewsNation has confirmed that in just the last 30 days, more than 50 cities have seen major enforcement activity, and some state leaders are now deploying their own resources to help ICE carry out those missions.
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The Trump administration has touted its policy of going after “the worst of the worst” — those who have committed crimes in America — while leaning on some nations to take migrants whom the U.S. has had difficulty deporting to their own countries.
Officials have removed protections from hundreds of thousands of people the Biden administration admitted into the country temporarily, with the aim of eventually making them deportable.
Homan said ICE is removing those with final orders and those who are threats to public safety and national security.
“Since Jan. 20, 70% of those we arrest are criminal aliens,” Homan said. “The other 30% are national security threats. These are like the over 300 Iranian nationals we’ve arrested in the last couple of weeks. These are people who are intelligence community has designated national security threats, or they’re affiliated with a terrorist organization. We have to arrest them and remove them from the country.”
He maintained that ICE is operating as it always has: “We’re doing the same job we’ve done for decades — enforcing the law.”
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Homan also said the United States currently has “the most secure border in the history of this nation.” He said illegal immigration is down 96%, with just 11 recorded getaways and zero migrant releases from the border in recent months.
Still, Homan says there is a need for continued construction of the border wall and additional border barriers.
“We’ve got to finish the wall, finish border barriers, because every place we built border barriers, not only did illegal immigration decrease, illegal drug flow decreases, and death decreases. Women and children can’t make it over a wall, which means they’re going to a place where there’s not a wall,” he said.
