On the same day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) San Francisco spokesperson told media he was resigning from his post because he couldn’t continue spreading lies for Donald Trump, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, and acting ICE director Thomas Homan, the agency chief spread more lies following House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) very correct claim that ”President Trump decided to terrorize innocent immigrant families in the Bay Area with his unjust and cruel raids”:
“How dare she say we are terrorizing communities,” Homan said, arguing that it’s the immigrants in country illegally that ICE arrested who are posing the threat.
Homan argued that ICE does not arrest innocent people and said that, during the agency’s operation in Los Angeles in February, 88 percent of the people arrested were convicted criminals.
Homan is a fucking liar, because ICE is literally on the record as saying that if undocumented immigrants with no criminal record get caught up in the raids he’s purposefully carrying out in California over the state’s numerous pro-immigrant bills, too fucking bad. Because of the so-called “sanctuary state” law, the agency said last October that “ICE will have no choice but to conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at worksites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests, instead of focusing on arrests at jails and prisons where transfers are safer for ICE officers and the community.”
To add insult to injury, that same statement declared that ICE would purposefully lock up immigrants far from their family and loved ones: “ICE will also likely have to detain individuals arrested in California in detention facilities outside of the state, far from any family they may have in California.” In the recent raid targeting Northern California, roughly half of the immigrants arrested had no criminal record at all. Since Trump’s inauguration, the arrests of immigrants without a criminal record more than doubled. If that’s not “cruel,” “unjust,” and the terrorizing of immigrant families, then what is?
Homan, who still hasn’t been confirmed to his position by the U.S. Senate, has become one of the most dangerous men in America. While Homan continues to claim that his mass deportation force is picking up so-called “bad hombres” and others who pose a threat to public safety, Homan is the threat to public safety. Earlier this month, ICE ordered the deportation of a two-time cancer survivor and single mom of three. Martha Lozano, who had lived in the U.S. for three decades, had no criminal record.
Days later, ICE deported Yancarlos Mendez Perez, the stepdad of a 6-year-old boy who was paralyzed from the waist down following a car accident last year. Mendez was initially detained last year for driving without a license—Ohio doesn’t let undocumented immigrants apply for a driver’s license in the first place—and despite being the family’s primary breadwinner and trained caregiver for “Ricky's complex medical needs,” ICE was hellbent on deporting him. His wife, Sandra Mendoza, said that their son “keeps crying and asking, `Where is Daddy?' The last time he talked to Yancarlos on the video call, he just kept asking, `Daddy, when are you coming home? Where are you?'"
Dr. Mzenga Wanyama, a Minnesota professor, is still in the U.S. but dangerously close to being deported as well. Dr. Wanyama had been checking in with ICE every one to three months for eight years straight—this is worth repeating: every one to three months for eight years straight—and was considered “low priority” for deportation because he has no criminal record. But under Trump, his family may now be ripped apart because not only does he face deportation, but his wife well. “Dr. Mzenga Aggrey Wanyama is a pillar in his community,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “For over two decades he’s helped shape future leaders in Minneapolis and beyond … no president, no federal agency will deport Dr. Wanyama without a fight from me.”
But somehow Homan still insists that Pelosi’s remark “was beyond the pale.” No sir, that’s you, and when one of your own spokespeople quits on you because you’re such a fucking liar, it’s time to call it quits yourself.