President-elect Donald Trump has appointed a new “border czar” who promises to be tough on illegal immigration and has challenged Canada to secure the US-Canada border amid high levels of terrorist suspects being caught.
During a local broadcast on Channel 7 News in Waterford, New York, on Monday, Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Trump’s border appointee, discussed America’s northern border with Canada. Homan, from West Carthage, N.Y., just southeast of Thousand Islands, Ontario, said he won’t let Canada’s weak border security impact his home.
“Raw numbers, the southern border, of course, has more crossings, but percentage-wise, you got a lot fewer resources up here in border patrol agents,” he said. “So they’re overwhelmed, and they’re not catching a lot of them because there’s only so much the few resources up here can do.”
He said the US’s northern border poses a “big national security vulnerability” after President Joe Biden and his border czar Kamala Harris sent half of its border patrol agents to the southern border.
Homan vowed to hire more northern border security agents and end catch-and-release policies, which have illegal immigrants being arrested and then released on promises to appear in court, which he said in many cases they “never” do.
“If you’re going across the northern border from St Lawrence River, the lake or on foot, they need to know right from the start, you can come, but you’re going to be arrested,” he said. “You’re not going to be released; we’ll remove you. It’s not going to be like the Biden administration…You’re not walking away. We’re going to lock you up.”
Homan said the US-Canada border is a “huge national security issue” as “special interest aliens,” or immigrants coming from countries that sponsor terrorism, use Canada as a gateway to the US.
According to US Customs and Border Protection, 484 individuals on the terrorist watch list were caught trying to enter the US through its northern border, while 249 tried to enter through the south.
”As an organization, they have a lot of money, and they can afford to fly into Canada rather than come across that northern border because they know there’s a lot fewer officers up here,” he said. (they can travel) from Thousand Islands across the St Louis River in 45 seconds. So it’s an extreme national security vulnerability on the northern border. It’s one of the things I’ll tackle as soon as I’m in the White House.”
He said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have to work with President-Elect Trump to enforce “whatever immigration laws” Canada has.
“There needs to be some negotiation between the two governments. But until then, we’ll do what President Trump did before. End catch a release and put a ‘remain in Mexico program’ for Canada.”
The “remain in Mexico program,” officially the Migrant Protection Protocols, required asylum seekers arriving at the Southern Border to wait in Mexico while their claims were reviewed and approved rather than have free reign in the country until then. The program deters migrants from crossing the border and reduces the number of asylum seekers waiting or avoiding hearings.
Homan called it a game-changer for border security.
“There’s a lot of policy things that need to be done, but we’ve done it once before, so it’s going to be a little easier this time,” Homan said. “But there has been understanding from Canada that they can’t be a gateway to terrorists coming to the United States.”
He noted that terrorism wasn’t the only safety concern coming across the border, but drug trafficking and other crimes coming through were cause for concern as well.
In an interview with True North’s Harrison Faulkner in February, Tom Homan raised concerns about the two countries’ shared border. He noted that according to a Government Accountability Office study done after the terrorist attack on 9/11, the agency said terrorists were ten times more likely to cross through the northern border than they were in the south.
In response to Homan’s concerns, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, said Canada takes border security “very very seriously,” Wednesday.
“It’s absolutely legitimate for our American neighbours to want to work collaboratively and effectively with us and to want to know that we take border security seriously, which we do,” she said.
The Canada Border Services Agency could not comment before the deadline, and Public Safety Canada did not respond to True North’s requests for comment.
