The administration’s official in charge of collecting illegals ordered deported by federal judges said Tuesday that Spanish media and immigration groups are helping his agency’s targets hide and avoid arrest and removal.
“Once we get a final order, many of them are not at their residence,” said Thomas Homan, executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Many of them aren’t where they are supposed to be,” he added.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue of “unaccompanied alien children” crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, it was revealed that of 1,800 illegals ordered deported the agency has been seeking, only 120 have been found.
“For the number of UACs we arrested since January, three times as many weren’t at the address they were supposed to be at,” said Homan.
And that’s because, in part, they’ve been educated by the Spanish media and non-governmental organizations how to duck arrest.
“The Spanish media, Spanish newspapers a lot of NGOs are educating these folks on how not to comply with law enforcement. There have been many situations where we’ve been at the residence, we know they are there but they don’t open up,” said Homan, who added that his agency doesn’t have authority to force them to open their doors.
“Looking for them is getting more difficult,” he said.
Republican Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a critic of the administration’s immigration policies, asked if Homan’s shop has been applauded or criticized for even the few arrests and deportations they’ve made recently.
“I’m glad you asked me that question because it’s frustrating,” he said in an apparent reference to the recent attacks his officers have faced for increasing deportations.
“The men and woman at ERO are simply doing their job,” he said, proudly noting that his office has deported 59 percent of its targets, a record.
But he said the reaction is ridicule. “In the immigration context, the men and women of ERO go out and enforce the law, enforce the laws that Congress enacted, what you appropriate me to do, enforcing the law, they get ridiculed by the media and by NGOs as violating civil rights,” he said.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
