The Police State Is Here, Tom Homan Admits, Live on Fox News

LOS ANGELES, CA — The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) today condemned the Trump Administration’s so-called “border czar,” Tom Homan, for falsely claiming that federal agents are following the Constitution when they attack and abduct day laborers and other immigrants in masked vigilante raids.

The following is a quote from Chris Newman, NDLON’s Legal Director:

“Tom Homan spoke with Fox News about how ICE and Border Patrol make their decisions when attacking day laborers at Home Depot. His quote was long and his diction was garbled, but his message was clear enough. What he describes is blatant racial profiling, unlawfully brutalizing people without ‘reasonable suspicion’ that they have done anything wrong.  More troubling, was his apparent intention to disregard any judicial orders that seek to reign in his deranged, unconstitutional conduct.

“NDLON is counsel a federal lawsuit seeking a halt to this lawless madness in Federal District Court. Stopping people based on perceived race, location, occupation, or for speaking Spanish or having an accent, whether based on one of those factors or all of those factors, without additional reasons, does not constitute reasonable suspicion, a basic requirement of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

“You can read Homan’s full quote below. You’ll see that he admits that his masked disappearance squads are doing exactly what we asked the court to hold as unlawful. We hope that Homan and his enablers will soon learn that his talk of ‘Fourth Amendment training’ is just empty MAGA blather.  We expect him to comply with court orders.”

TOM HOMAN:  “Look, the people need to understand, ICE, ICE officers and Border Patrol – they don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them and question them. They just need the totality of circumstances, right? They just got through the observation, you know? Get artypical – articulable facts, based on the location, the occupation, their physical appearance, their actions, like, uh, you, uh, a uniformed Border Patrol agent walks up to ’em, at, at, at for instance a Home Depot, an’, an’ they got all these articulable facts plus the person walks away or runs away.

You know, agents are trained. What they need to, de-, uh, detain somebody temporarily and question them. It’s not probable cause, it’s reasonable suspicion. We’re trained on that, and every agent every six months, gets, get Fourth Amendment training over and over again. These officers really good what they do. An’ if the judge make a decision that’s against what these officer train, what the, what the law’s based upon? Then they’re gon’ shut down operation, I think that’s where, that’s their end game. They want ICE to stop doing this. But if and if they base it on the rule of law, they’re gon’ find out Bo’ Pacho ‘n’ ICE is doin’ exactly what they going do in accordance with the law.”

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