Exclusive: Former ICE director vows to make 2024 Elections about border security: 'country-ending crisis'
A former Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is working to make the border crisis the central issue of the 2024 Election, arguing that the current situation at the border is the worst he has ever seen.
"In my nearly 35 years of service under both Democrats and Republicans, I’ve never seen it this bad," Tom Homan, a former police officer and border patrol agent who served as the acting Director of ICE from 2017-2018 under former President Donald Trump, told Fox News Digital. "But fortunately, we know how to fix it. If we can make 2024 the border security election and come together to do some very specific things, we’ll get this border shut down in 120 days."
The comments come as Homan and others have launched BORDERS911, Inc, a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that is seeking to make the border the defining issue of 2024. At the center of the effort is a pledge, which the organization hopes to get signed by both voters and candidates in order to push for policy commitments such as the end of catch and release, ending asylum fraud, reforming legal immigration procedures, and reinstating Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy.
The new organization is also being lead by Derek Maltz, a former Director of the DEA's Special Operations Division.
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Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a caucus night rally in Las Vegas, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill))
"We’re facing a country-ending crisis, and this pledge will be a critical tool for focusing the debate. Citizens need to be plugged in like never before, and candidates must be specific and firm in their commitments. The time for empty promises and political games is over," Maltz told Fox News Digital. "The Mexican Cartels have formed a strong partnership with Chinese Criminal Networks and are flooding the country with historic amounts of deadly fentanyl. America is now facing the worst drug crisis in our history, and I have never seen so many citizens in my 28-year DEA career dying from these poisonous chemical substances."
The pledge effort comes as border security and immigration issues already promises to be a key concern among voters in the upcoming election, with both Republicans and Democrats attempting to position themselves as better suited to handle the crisis.
According to a report from Politico Wednesday, President Biden is considering several new executive actions and federal regulations designed to stop the flow of migrants at the southern border. Among the ideas being floated by the administration is to ban migrants from seeking asylum between U.S. ports of entry, according to the report, which notes that the administration may seek to attach such a policy to a trigger that would come into effect only after a certain number of illegal crossings take place.
President Joe Biden walks along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas, Jan. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Other ideas include making it harder for migrants to reach the "credible fear standard" used to screen potential asylum seekers and ways to more quickly deport those who do not meet the new standard.
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The proposals come after a bipartisan border deal failed in the Senate, something the administration and Democrats are looking to point to as voters raise concerns about the situation in the coming months.
"The Administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system," White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández said of the bill's failure, according to Politico.
President Joe Biden. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But BORDER911, which is also being led by former Texas Department of Public Safety's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division Capitan Jaeson Jones, investigative journalist Sara Carter, retired Border Patrol Chief Rodney S. Scott., and former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan, argued the Biden administration shares the bulk of the blame for the current crisis, with the pledge saying that border security has been "systematically dismantled" by the administration and that it has "lost operational control of its border."
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"Communities and families are being devastated daily as the cartels take total advantage of the reckless border policies. Sadly, the cartels are making billions of dollars by also running the largest human and sex trafficking operations ever.," Maltz said. "It’s time for all citizens to step up and understand how our country is under attack from dangerous criminals and recognize that without border security we will have no country."
The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
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