White House border czar Tom Homan on Tuesday said he’s certain that all of the Venezuelans deported this month to El Salvador were members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.
He said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency he used to lead, put “hundreds and hundreds” of hours of investigation into making sure it put the right people on the three planes that flew to El Salvador on March 15.
“The ICE officials have said they are confident that every one of the Venezuelans on those planes are members of TdA,” Mr. Homan told reporters. “I got assurances from the highest levels of ICE that this was done right and everybody on that plane were Venezuelans with TdA.”
That issue is at the heart of the constitutional showdown brewing in two federal courts in Washington.
The American Civil Liberties Union, arguing on behalf of Venezuelan migrants who have already been deported and others still awaiting deportation, says not only did ICE sweep up nongang members, but it even deported some people who were legitimate victims of the gang.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has largely sided with the ACLU, ordering a halt to all flights and even hinting he might bring back the deportees so they can get a chance to argue they’re not TdA members.
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Mr. Homan wouldn’t go into detail about how ICE made its determinations but said in general the agency looks over immigration and criminal case files, pores over undercover video, talks to informants and takes statements from other gang members.
The government has made those arguments to Judge Boasberg.
The Trump administration has appealed his blockade, and the case is pending in the federal appeals court in Washington, even as it still plays out in front of Judge Boasberg.
Mr. Homan on Tuesday also defended the pace of ICE deportations, though he declined to estimate how many people will be ousted this year.
“I have no idea. It depends on what kind of money we have,” he said as he pleaded with Congress to pony up more cash. “We need to buy more beds. We need more airplane flights. We need more officers on the ground. We need more contracts with companies that do a lot of work that doesn’t require a badge and gun. So the more money we have from Congress, the more successful we’ll be.”
He said ICE has made 44,000 interior arrests, which he said is a much faster pace than under President Obama.
And he bristled at reports that deportations were higher under President Biden, saying those numbers were inflated by the border chaos under the previous administration.
Border cases are easy to deport, but the 90% drop in illegal border crossings has sapped that source of removals. When looking only at deportations of people arrested in the interior, Mr. Homan said ICE is well ahead of the Biden pace.
