Appearing as a guest on Thursday's The Source with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, border czar Tom Homan called out the media's liberal slant on illegal immigration as the two debated the deportation of alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to his home country of El Salvador.
After Homan gave his opinion that the order of withholding that had previously prevented Garcia from being sent back to his home country became "meaningless" after MS-13 was declared a terrorist organization by the Donald Trump administration, Collins followed up:
I'm glad you brought that up because that withholding of removal order essentially said the one place he can't go is El Salvador, where he's from. He claimed he was concerned he could be persecuted if he was returned. Why not simply have him return to the U.S., detain him, and then deport him to a third country. Wouldn't that be in accordance with the law?
Noting that he is not an attorney and was merely giving his opinion from his experience as a law enforcement officer, Homan reiterated that he believed that it was appropriate to ignore the order of withholding after MS-13 was declared to be a terrorist group, and also argued that, unlike in 2019, El Salvador is a much safer country now so that Garcia would no longer have a legitimate claim of being in danger from rival gangs.
Undeterred, the CNN host followed up: "But why not make that argument in court? If you think that you can make the argument that he is fine to go back to El Salvador, why not -- why not just make that argument and try to terminate that order that said that the one place that he couldn't go to was the one place that he was sent to?"
Homan soon called out the media's double standard in demanding that illegal aliens be vetted before they are deported but not pressing President Joe Biden to vet them when he was allowing millions to enter the country illegally:
No one asks these questions about the proper vetting of the millions of people the Biden administration pushed across the border and released into this country illegally. No one was concerned about the vetting then, and, all of a sudden, now everybody wants to be concerned about the vetting about the people that are going to be deported. I mean, it seems like a one-sided show. But I stand by the fact that I think things were done right with this case. He's an MS-13 gang member, he has a final order of removal, he is designated terrorist, and anything beyond that we'll let the courts settle on it.
After Collins kept pushing on the same issue, making Homan have to repeat himself, he finally declared:
Again, again, we keep going back and back, but, again, that was years ago -- country conditions were different. That gang no longer exists in El Salvador. He had been designated a terrorist at that time. Two different federal judges said he was an MS-13 member, a police department said he's an MS-13 member, ICE data says he's an MS-13 member, El Salvador says he's an MS-13 member.
It is noteworthy that CNN has admitted that El Salvador is a much safer country now than it was five years ago, thus undermining the argument that Garcia would need to be protected from gangs in his home country.
Transcript follows:
CNN's The Source with Kaitlan Collins
April 17, 2025
9:06 p.m. Eastern
TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: And the order of withholding that everybody keeps talking about -- order of withholding you set aside because he's a designated terrorist which means the order of withholding it meaningless, I believe, according to the attorneys. And, look, even if we -- even if he came back, people think he's going to be released and go back to -- no, he's going to be detained, and he's going to be removed as per the order of removal either to El Salvador or another country. So this person has an order of removal, he's seen two different immigration judges, and he's been ordered deported, and that's exactly what happened.
COLLINS: I'm glad you brought that up because that withholding of removal order essentially said the one place he can't go is El Salvador, where he's from. He claimed he was concerned he could be persecuted if he was returned. Why not simply have him return to the U.S., detain him, and then deport him to a third country. Wouldn't that be in accordance with the law?
HOMAN: I think we're in accordance with the law. I mean, I'm not an attorney. I'm not at DOJ fighting this case, but my opinion, in the years that I spent doing this job, he is now designated a terrorist -- the withholding order is set aside. And we've got to remember, the withholding was issued years ago. Things have changed. El Salvador is one of the safest countries in the region because of the stuff President Bukele did. You know, the gangs are no longer operating on the streets of Venezuela. That's why he built that prison. So I don't think the gang danger that they once thought was there is even there anymore, so the situation has changed. This is much like temporary protected status -- the TPS. That's only temporary. When the conditions of the country have changed, TPS can be ended, and they can be removed to the country.
COLLINS: But why not make that argument in court? If you think that you can make the argument that he is fine to go back to El Salvador, why not -- why not just make that argument and try to terminate that order that said that the one place that he couldn't go to was the one place that he was sent to?
HOMAN: Look, again, I'm not litigating the case. The DOJ -- I think DOJ is continuing to litigate the case, but I think we're in a good stance. I think we're in a good place.
(...)
HOMAN: No one asks these questions about the proper vetting of the millions of people the Biden administration pushed across the border and released into this country illegally. No one was concerned about the vetting then, and, all of a sudden, now everybody wants to be concerned about the vetting about the people that are going to be deported. I mean, it seems like a one-sided show. But I stand by the fact that I think things were done right with this case. He's an MS-13 gang member, he has a final order of removal, he is designated terrorist, and anything beyond that we'll let the courts settle on it.
(...)
COLLINS: But this administration has admitted in court that he was mistakenly deported -- that he should not have been deported.
HOMAN: Look, they said there's an administrative error, but if you look at the case -- if I look at the case as a non-attorney, just an enforcement officer, I think things were done right. Again, they're talking about, "Well, it might have been paperwork error with the withholding," but if we look at the case that he's designated as a terrorist, I think that withholding has been set aside. That is my opinion. But, again, we'll let DOJ fight it out.
COLLINS: Well, I mean, the solicitor general -- who is the third in the chain of command at the DOJ -- has said that this was an error.
HOMAN: Then I'll let them deal with it. I'm giving you my opinion. I said I'm not going to get in the middle of what DOJ is arguing in court. I'm telling you, from my stance, what we've done, I believe, is correct, and that's why DOJ is standing by the fact that what we did was right.
COLLINS: You know, I've seen some people -- they're worried that the stance of this -- this administration, when it comes to this, is that, if someone is deported by accident, that they have no responsibility for them once they are in the custody of another -- a foreign government. What would you say to that?
HOMAN: Well, they're in the custody of El Salvador. He's an El Salvadoran national. He was born in El Salvador. El Salvador has him in custody, and El Salvador decides what's going to happen to him. I mean, again, the El Salvadoran president made it clear he's not going to release him. So, again, I'm going to go back to DOJ -- they can fight this out in the courts -- I'm not a part of that. I'm not an attorney -- I'm not a prosecutor. So we'll let the courts decide what the next steps will be.
COLLINS: Even though it was a U.S. immigration judge who said, "The one place he can't go is El Salvador." I mean, he could have been deported literally anywhere else, and there would not have been a fight.
HOMAN: Again, again, we keep going back and back, but, again, that was years ago -- country conditions were different. That gang no longer exists in El Salvador. He had been designated a terrorist at that time. Two different federal judges said he was an MS-13 member, a police department said he's an MS-13 member, ICE data says he's an MS-13 member, El Salvador says he's an MS-13 member.
