President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan went viral on Friday after practically boasting on TV about all the ways ICE agents and Border Patrol agents can go after suspected illegal immigrants.
Homan was being interviewed on Fox News about a potential ruling from a federal judge in Los Angeles over whether the Trump administration could be ordered to pause its ICE raids on immigrants.
He responded by claiming that immigration law enforcers don’t actually need “probable cause” to detain a possible suspect, despite it being a key part of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
“People need to understand, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers and Border Patrol don’t need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them,” Homan said. “They just go through the observations, get articulable facts based on their location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions.”
Homan also insisted that if his agents briefly detained someone, “it’s not probable cause. It’s reasonable suspicion.”
HuffPost reached out to the ACLU for comment on Homan’s claim, but no one immediately responded.
During court arguments about the potential ruling to pause ICE raids Thursday, immigrant advocates said the agents conducting the raids detain people without warrants or probable cause, and rely instead on suspicion and people’s race or ethnicity.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Bashyrov insisted that the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement plan is strictly based on proper evidence and the “totality of the circumstances.”
However, Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, pointed out to U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong that most immigration stops do not happen to white people and are instead “happening with people who appear Latino.”
The ACLU’s “Know Your Rights” page on immigrants’ rights notes that a Border Patrol agent cannot detain a person without “reasonable suspicion” that the person is committing or has committed a violation of immigration law or federal law. In addition, immigration officers cannot arrest people without “probable cause,” though they do not need any suspicion to stop people at immigration checkpoints to ask brief questions “related to verifying immigration status.” They can also visually inspect vehicles.
Homan’s comments did not go over well on social media, where many lawmakers and pundits called him out, including California Sen. Alex Padilla (D), who last month was forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference about the immigration raids in Los Angeles.
“Under the Trump Administration, ICE and Border Patrol are being empowered to stop and question you based solely on how you look. No probable cause. No real reason. Just your ‘physical appearance,’” he said. “That’s not justice — it’s profiling.”
