3 hours ago

Tom Homan Has Unhinged Response To Latest Fatal ICE Shootings

Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, attempted to pass the buck when asked why the ICE agents responsible for fatal shootings in Texas and Maine were not wearing body cameras.

"The Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security. I was up on the Hill as part of the negotiating team to reopen the government. And they wanted body cameras," Homan told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday. "There was $120 million in the budget they were holding up to buy those body cameras. Now, since the Big Beautiful Bill passed, now the reconciliation bill, the body cameras have been ordered; there's a deployment schedule on the books."

Politics: Donald Trump Posted The Weirdest Thing About Lindsey Graham's Death

Homan added that individual field offices will have to train their officers to use the body cameras.

CNN's chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins pressed Homan on the urgency for these body cameras to be deployed, given the two fatal shootings in recent weeks.

"It is urgent," Homan said. "As soon as they had the funding, they bought them."

Collins pointed out that it's been over two months since Congress appropriated $20 million for body cameras to the Department of Homeland Security. But Homan again blamed the Democrats, saying the rollout would've been faster if they hadn't shut down the government.

Politics: Democrats Support Bill That Would Give ICE $10 Billion

Homeland Security expressed similar sentiments last week following the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston.

"The officers involved in the incident in Houston had not been issued body-worn cameras due to back-to-back Democrat shutdowns," the department told The Associated Press.

Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) echoed Homan's comments when asked about the issue Tuesday, claiming Homeland Security didn't have the body cameras due to the government shutdown.

"They don't have them yet," Collins said on Tuesday. "The orders were placed, but they couldn't place the orders when the government was shut down. That delayed the purchase and deployment of body-worn cameras."

Politics: New York Times Subpoenas Could Complicate Jay Clayton's Confirmation

It's unclear how the partial government shutdown prevented Homeland Security from deploying body cameras despite the $20 million in funding and the $75 billion in supplemental funding ICE received in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" last year.

At least nine people have been killed by immigration enforcement officers since Trump began his mass deportation campaign. Two of those deaths occurred in the last week.