Donald Trump’s “border czar” was pressed by a CNN host about recent fatal shootings by ICE agents on Sunday and admitted that he wasn’t sure about the status of the agents involved in those shootings.
Two deadly incidents in Maine and Texas within a week caused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to temporarily halt traffic stops and reassess their tactics, according to multiple news reports. In one case, the victim had legal residence within the United States.
Tom Homan was interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday and said that while it was general policy for agents involved in such incidents to be placed on administrative leave, he wasn’t tracking the cases and couldn’t say whether that policy was being followed.
“I don’t know specifically. I haven’t been involved with the investigations,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash. He added: “I’ve said from day one I won’t comment on an investigation, but I can tell you I haven’t specifically tracked these cases, but I can tell you, per policy, they’re usually put on administrative leave pending the investigation, pending sworn statements, internal affairs interviews and the entire investigation.”
The Independent reached out to DHS to clarify if proper administrative leave policies were followed in the wake of the Maine and Texas shootings. Homan went on to face questions about whether an ICE agent involved in the shooting of a 25-year-old Colombian national living lawfully in the U.S., Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, should have been on the force at all. A Maine newspaper, the Portland Press Herald, reported on Saturday that the agent identified in the press as having shot Guerrero, David Brouillette, is now in protective custody.
“Court documents reveal one of the ICE officers connected to the fatal shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex-wives. One of his ex-wives told my colleague Erin Burnett that she experienced severe domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent behavior, and even that, if anything ever happened to her, he’d be the one to look at,” Bash told Homan.
She continued: “I should say he denied the allegations. But, at one point, a judge ordered him to temporarily relinquish any firearms. Should someone with those issues be an ICE agent?”
Homan flatly denied that such an individual, in his eyes, should have made it through the vetting process.
His remarks come amid a time of troubled leadership for America’s immigration authorities, whose positions have been transformed under the second Trump administration into a rapid deportation machine. The White House has set quotas for daily arrest totals as high as 3,000 nationwide as the president and his team hope to achieve previously unprecedented levels of detentions and deportations.
The border czar went on to say that increased training being implemented by ICE’s new acting director would address issues of officer conduct that have riled Democrats and even some Republicans on the Hill. But it’s not clear how much of that training will apply to ICE agents already in the field, or how soon it will be implemented.
It’s also unclear whether the agency is doing anything to address vetting issues now identified by Homan himself, and previously highlighted by lawmakers in Congress.
An ex-wife of Brouillette told The Independent this past week that investigators charged with vetting new ICE hires, who carry firearms on the job, never got in contact with her despite having been involved in court proceedings with him over domestic disputes in the past.
“This could have been 100 percent preventable,” she said.
This is the second time in less than a year that fatal shootings by Trump’s immigration authorities have spurred reassessments of strategy by those in charge in Washington.
Previously, the shootings of two Americans in Minneapolis led to authorities scaling back a federal immigration enforcement surge in that city and eventually contributed to the ouster of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino, ICE’s commander.
DHS officials have declined to confirm the names of any of the agents involved in the shootings.
“We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” a spokesperson told The Independent. “Doxxing our officers put their lives and their families in serious danger. Our law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists. Now, thanks to the malicious rhetoric of sanctuary politicians, they are under constant threat from violent agitators.”
