The White House kicked off its celebration of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office by highlighting its efforts to combat illegal immigration on Monday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan joined White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at an early morning briefing on Monday. The pair touted massive decreases in border crossings as well as new executive orders aimed at deportations and further border enforcement.
“We are in the process of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in American history,” Leavitt said. “After four years of being vilified by the Biden-Harris administration, our heroic ICE officers can finally do their jobs.”
Homan joined Leavitt and accused the Biden administration of having “unsecured the border on purpose,” despite receiving a very secure border from the first Trump administration.
TRUMP REPORTS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ENCOUNTERS AT HISTORIC LOWS DURING FIRST FULL MONTH IN OFFICE
“Look, I started on the Border Patrol in 1984. I’ve been at this for over 40 years. I’ve worked for six presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. Every president I’ve ever worked for took border security seriously because you can’t have national security if you don’t have strong border security. We’ve gotta know who’s coming, what’s coming, where its coming and why its coming in, right?”
Homan noted that “even President Obama and President Clinton” addressed border security to some extent. But Biden, he said, is the “first president in the history of this nation who came into office and unsecured the border on purpose.”
He then went on to tout massive decreases in illegal immigration that Trump has achieved in just a few months.
“When 96% less people are coming [across the border], how many women aren’t being sexually assaulted by the cartels?” Homan said. “How many children aren’t dying making that journey? How many women and children aren’t being sex-trafficked into this country? How many known and suspected terrorists aren’t making it into this nation? How many pounds of fentanyl isn’t getting into this country to kill young Americans?”
The administration’s ongoing Operation Tidal Wave is the largest deportation operation in American history, the pair said. Leavitt added that it is only the beginning, however, and is a “sign of things to come.”
The Trump administration said in early April that it had already deported 100,000 illegal immigrants, though officials did not offer a new total at Monday’s briefing.
Monday’s briefing was the first of several morning press conferences the White House has scheduled this week. Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent will join her for a similar briefing on Tuesday, Leavitt said.
Recent high-profile deportations have seen migrants deported to an El-Salvador mega prison after the president invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law, to deport Venezuelan gang members. That move has since been held up in court with the Trump administration opting to deport 17 alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador from Guantánamo Bay on Sunday night via Title 8.
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