Fmr. ICE Director Tom Homan Lights Up Dem at Congressional Hearing: ‘I’m a Taxpayer, You Work for ME!’

Monica Sanchez | September 27, 2019
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Former ICE Director Tom Homan during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration detention facilities Thursday slammed Democratic lawmakers for the ongoing crisis on the U.S.-Southern border.

“Look, you want to know why there's 50,000 people in detention? You want to know why there are one million illegal entries in the United States? You want to know why we have these issues? It’s because you’ve failed to secure the border,” Homan fired. “You guys failed to work with this president to close the three loopholes we’ve asked for two years to close."

“You need to look in the mirror,” he went on, as Rep. Washington Democratic Rep. Pamila Jayapal interjected to inform him that his time had ended. “You have failed the American people by not securing the border."

As Homan continued to speak, Jayapal began to pound her gavel, demanding that the former ICE head at once “please respect the chair and the authority of the chair."

Homan replied, "I've asked you politely to let me go beyond my time, and you let other people go on beyond their time. Not to Tom Homan; he don't get to go beyond his time.”

"I respect the chair's authority,” he continued, despite Jayapal's demands. “You work for me! I'm a taxpayer. I'm a taxpayer. You work for me."

Jayapal, visibly overcome with frustration, banged her gavel repeatedly and then said after a moment of silence, angerly, “The witness will suspend."

Homan’s fiery remarks went viral on Twitter.

Rep. Jayapal tweeted about the exchange on Friday, saying that Homan disrespected “rules & Congressional oversight” and that with his behavior “it is no wonder that ICE has become a rogue agency.”

She went on to suggest that Homan is a racist and sexist who “can’t stand respecting brown immigrant woman’s power over him.”

Earlier in the hearing, Homan called it “pathetic and sad” that Democrats under the Obama administration provided immigration enforcement with the resources they needed to enforce the border, but now that a certain someone else is in office, doing so would be unthinkable.

Check out the full exchange below. 

 

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