Former ICE Director Tom Homan fired back at Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) for suggesting that Homan might not care about separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border “because these children don’t look like the children” that are around him.
“I don’t get it. Have you ever held a deceased child in your arms?” Garcia said on Friday during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing titled, The Trump Administration’s Child Separation Policy: Substantiated Allegations of Mistreatment.
“First of all, your comments are disgusting. I’ve served my country for 34 years. This is out of control,” Homan shot back. “Yes, I held a 5-year-old boy in my arms that was in the back of a tractor-trailer and knelt down beside him and said a prayer for him because I knew what the last 30 minutes of his life were like and I had a 5-year-old son at the time.”
Homan continued, “What I’ve been doing in my 34 years serving my nation is to save lives…you’re the member of Congress. Fix it.”
Garcia replied, “We agree on that.”
Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) jumped in and emphasized that he is “going to have civility” at his hearings. He gave Homan a chance to continue.
“No one has experienced what I have experienced. I saw many dead bodies come across this border,” Homan said, referencing a memo he signed that included the zero-tolerance policy as one way to “stop death” at the border. “If you want to legalize illegal immigration, good luck with that because it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse at that border if you say we’ll create, from now on, there will be no consequence, no deterrence.”
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