The Trump Administration’s border ‘czar’, Tom Homan, assured that immigration raids will continue throughout the country despite the partial closure of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is completing its third day without any signs of a financing agreement in Congress.
Asked if the shutdown would restrict the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to continue its operations, Homan responded that despite the lack of funds to pay agents, they will continue to apply the heavy-handed immigration policy promoted by Trump.
«ICE officers will not be paid, but it seems they are getting used to it. So no, the immigration mission, the reason President Trump was elected president, continues. We have the most secure border in the nation’s history. We have record numbers of arrests and deportations that will continue,” he told CNN.
The US Senate failed last Thursday in its attempt to approve a Republican bill to fund DHS until September, after almost all Democrats blocked the measure, considering that it did not include sufficient limits on ICE operations, which have sparked protests and have so far resulted in the death of two Americans in Minneapolis (Minnesota).
The scheduled recess in the two chambers of Congress, controlled by Republicans – between whom there are also differences on whether to promote an annual or provisional financing proposal – could extend the closure of the entity, which employs more than 270,000 people, of which more than 90% will remain active during this period.
This new partial shutdown, the second in February after a brief closure at the beginning of the month, will not affect the rest of the federal government, whose budget has already been approved until the end of the fiscal year. A previous total shutdown limited the Administration’s functions for a record 43 days between last October and November.
It will only include agencies under the DHS umbrella: ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Coast Guard, Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), among others.
ICE has been the most visible face of Trump’s harsh anti-immigration policies in his second term, and the entity that has carried out, together with CBP, raids in cities with a Democratic majority such as Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Although the confrontation between Democrats and Republicans centers on this agency, the million-dollar injection of funds through the budget and tax law promoted by the US president gives DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ample freedom to reallocate the money dedicated to guaranteeing immigration operations.
