Former ICE acting director praises Trump immigration reform plan for putting border security front and center
Democratic congressional senior leadership has not offered up any ideas to secure the border, says Fox News contributor Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE.
President Trump's new immigration reform proposal is a "great plan," but Democratic leadership may oppose the measure because they are averse to White House attempts to secure the southern border, former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said on "America's Newsroom" Thursday.
"I was briefed on [Trump's] plan and I liked what I heard," Homan told host Bill Hemmer. "And, front and center, number one of the six branches [of the proposal] is border security."
Homan said that Trump's proposal correctly addresses "closing the loopholes" that have allowed what he called the "crisis at the border" to escalate.
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He added that senior leadership in the Democratic Party has been "against anything to secure the border."
"They haven't offered up one fix to the current crisis on the border," he said. "Not one thing have they offered up to help stem the tide of the illegal immigration at the border."
Homan suggested that Democrats don't want what he called the Republican-supported pairing of border security and expansion of legal immigration.
"[That's] the right thing to do," he said, adding that Trump's plan still accounts for "family-based immigration" but it concentrates on the immediate, "nuclear" family members rather than "cousins and stepfathers."
Homan also said the information technology industry has been yearning for more skilled workers to fill open positions in the field.
"They need more talent to further expand the I.T. infrastructure," he said, adding that there are people who want to emigrate to America to work in technology.
Homan added that he also wants to see the battle against the MS-13 gang continued in places like Los Angeles and in New York State.
Trump unveiled his long-awaited immigration overhaul Thursday in the White House Rose Garden. It would dramatically alter how the U.S. accepts people into the country, shifting the system in order to favor admissions based on merit rather than family ties.
"If adopted, our plan will transform America's immigration system into the pride of our nation and the envy of the modern world," Trump said in his address.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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