Tom Homan, the incoming border czar for the Trump-Vance administration, left CNN anchor Kasie Hunt stunned into silence on Wednesday after issuing a fiery threat to Denver’s progressive Democratic mayor, Mike Johnston. He had previously promised to obstruct Homan’s efforts to apprehend illegal immigrants. On Monday, Homan appeared on Fox News, responding to Mayor Johnston’s vow to refuse any requests for local assistance in detaining migrants suspected of criminal activity. Johnston had made headlines earlier for suggesting that he would like to see city police block federal immigration authorities from entering Denver, an action he compared to Tiananmen Square, according to The Guardian.
While Johnston later retracted his comments, Homan criticized the mayor, accusing him of encouraging felonious activity. “Yeah, you’re absolutely breaking the law. All he has to do is look at Arizona vs. U.S. and you will see he’s breaking the law,” Homan told host Sean Hannity. “But look, me and the Denver mayor we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail. I’m willing to put him in jail. There’s a statute, Title 8, United States Code 1324 – AAA. And what it says is it’s a felony if you knowingly harbor and conceal illegal aliens from immigration authorities. It is also a felony to impede a federal law enforcement officer,” Homan continued.
“So if you don’t want to help, that’s fine. He can get the hell out of the way, but we’re going to go do the job. President Trump has a mandate from the American people. We’ve got to secure this country and save American lives.” CNN host Kasie Hunt on Wednesday played clips of Johnston and Homan, responding with a stunned “Ooooff!”
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CNN reacting to Tom Homan pic.twitter.com/THY8yFN4v7
— Dr. Richard Harambe (@Richard_Harambe) November 27, 2024
Johnston is not the first progressive mayor to publicly challenge Tom Homan, a veteran of the first Trump administration’s ICE personnel. Earlier this month, Boston’s Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu faced scrutiny after vowing to deny federal authorities access to city resources during raids aimed at locating and arresting violent criminals. While a 2014 city ordinance prevents cooperation on civil immigration matters, it does not apply to criminal cases, according to the Boston Herald. Wu told a local TV station, “We are not cooperating with those efforts that actually threaten the safety of everyone by causing widespread fear and having large-scale economic impact.”
In his interview with Hannity,
Homan noted further: “I find it shocking that any mayor of a city would say — President Trump’s been clear. We want to concentrate on public safety threats and national security threats. I find it hard to believe that any mayor or governor would say they don’t want public safety threats removed from their neighborhoods. I mean, I don’t know what the hell is going on in Denver, but we’re going to go and we’re going to fix it. If you don’t want to fix it, if he doesn’t want to protect his communities, President Trump and ICE will.”
That led Hannity to ask: “So you will be going into Colorado, Illinois, New York, California, and you are going to you are going to uphold the law of the land. That’s your commitment. It doesn’t matter what these elected politicians threaten or say that they are going to do?” Homan was adamant: “We’re going to enforce the law, period, and they’re not going to stop us.”
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