Homan said that having a child in the United States after entering illegally ‘is not a get out of jail free card.’
White House border czar Tom Homan said that illegal immigrant parents of children who are born in the United States are not immune from being deported.
“Having a U.S. citizen child doesn’t make you immune from our laws of the country,” Homan told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “American families get separated every day by law enforcement. Thousands of times a day, when a parent gets put in jail, the child can’t go with them.”
Homan was responding to claims made last week by a judge who accused the Trump administration of deporting a 2-year-old U.S. citizen with “no meaningful process” to Honduras. The child’s mother, an illegal immigrant, took the 2-year-old with her as she was being deported.
Homan disputed the judge’s statement that the decision lacked due process.
The illegal immigrant mother “had due process at great taxpayer expense, and was ordered by an immigration judge after those hearings, so she had due process,” Homan said. He said that it was not the child who was being deported, but that the child’s mother chose to take the girl with her.
Elsewhere in the interview, Homan said it was the parents of the child who put her in that situation—not the Trump administration.
“When you enter the country illegally, and you know you’re here illegally, and you choose to have a U.S. citizen child, that’s on you. That’s not on this administration. If you choose to put your family in that position, that’s on them,” Homan said.
He added that having a child in the United States after entering illegally “is not a get out of jail free card. It doesn’t make you immune from our laws. If that’s the message we send the entire world, women are going to keep putting themselves at risk and come to this country.”
“We send a message: You can enter the country illegally—which is a crime, that’s okay—you can have due process, at great taxpayer expense, get ordered removed—that’s okay, don’t leave—But have a U.S. citizen child and you’re immune from removal? That’s not the way it works.”
