Homan ties Yiannopoulos’s rapid removal to July 22 removal order
Tom Homan, the White House “border czar,” on Sunday rejected the suggestion that British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos received preferential treatment in being deported one day after his arrest, telling CNN’s State of the Union that the removal simply followed a federal immigration judge’s order.
Homan’s account traced the path to that order. Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, did not appear at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on July 22, according to Homan. “He didn’t show up,” Homan said. “The judge ordered him deported. So, once ICE gets an order of deportation from a federal judge, their job is to execute that order, and that’s what they did.”
“He had his due process, ordered removed by a federal judge, and ICE removed him,” Homan added. “It’s that simple.”
The speed of Yiannopoulos’s removal has prompted questions because many others deported by ICE have first spent lengthy periods in detention. Homan attributed the rapid turnaround to a broader efficiency push at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
“Once a judge orders them out, rather than being in detention, waiting for travel documents and flight arrangements, we – ICE, along with the [border patrol] and [DHS] – [are] working really good on the efficiencies of the removal process,” Homan said.
“As soon as we get an order removal, our goal is remove them as quick as possible, regardless of who they are. Get them out quick. Open those beds up for more detainees,” he continued.
Yiannopoulos was arrested on Thursday at an airport in New Orleans, where he may have travelled to attend a Friday concert by rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, at the city’s Caesars Superdome. DHS announced the arrest on Friday. By Saturday morning, Yiannopoulos’s name had been removed from a list of people in ICE detention, and DHS confirmed that he had been deported to the United Kingdom on Friday.
A DHS release said Yiannopoulos “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws” and added that “the administration is working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport.”
CNN host Dana Bash asked Homan whether right-wing commentator Laura Loomer had, as she claimed, tipped off ICE that Yiannopoulos’s permission to be in the U.S. had expired. Homan said multiple people had contacted ICE about Yiannopoulos.
“A lot of people tipped ICE off. There are a lot of people who’s calling ICE, and she says she’s one of them. She probably was,” Homan said. “But bottom line is, it doesn’t matter. He was ordered removed by an immigration judge, and ICE’s job it to execute that order.”
Loomer and Yiannopoulos had publicly fallen out, according to The Guardian. Yiannopoulos had previously cheered the Trump administration’s deportation efforts before his expulsion from the U.S.
Homan also rejected the suggestion that the Trump administration had used Yiannopoulos’s case to send a political message. “We don’t deport people based on political affiliation,” he said.
MSI previously reported that U.S. immigration officials arrested Milo Yiannopoulos in New Orleans and that he was apparently detained by ICE in Louisiana before his removal to the United Kingdom.