Incoming border czar Tom Homan said plans for immigration raids beginning in Chicago on Tuesday are now being reviewed in the wake of a leak about the operations.
Homan made the remarks in two different interviews on Saturday.
"We're reviewing any plans in Chicago because of the leak," Homan told ABC News, also telling The Washington Post that the incoming Trump administration “hasn’t made a decision yet.”
“We’re looking at this leak and will make a decision based on this leak,” Homan told the Post. “It’s unfortunate because anyone leaking law enforcement operations puts officers at greater risk.”
At issue is a Wall Street Journal report from Friday that outlined plans for mass deportations in the Chicago-area beginning Tuesday, the day after the inauguration. The report outlined plans by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to send up to 200 agents to target 300 illegals with histories of violent crime.
"When the president gets sworn in, ICE officers are going to have a new priority of seeking out those who are considered a public safety threat and a national security threat," Homan told ABC News.
Donald Trump and Homan have been promising mass deportations, starting with violent criminals, ever since the president-elect tapped Homan as border czar shortly after winning the election. Trump vowed mass deportations on the campaign trail. Trump called the raids a “big priority” in his interview with ABC News on Saturday.
Separately, Trump told NBC News on Saturday that "it'll begin very early, very quickly," he said. "I can't say which cities because things are evolving. And I don't think we want to say what city.”
Homan last month signaled where the deportations would start. “We’re going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois” at a Christmas party in the city, the Journal reported then.
Chicago became a sanctuary city in the 1980s, limiting how police can cooperate with federal immigration agents. It has strengthened those policies several times since, including after Trump first took office eight years ago.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and first-term Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have said they won't back off those commitments. Johnson in November called Trump's deportation plans "small and soft."
“There’s going to be a big raid all across the country. Chicago is just one of many places,” Homan said Friday, according to the Post. “ICE is finally going to do their job. We’re going to take the handcuffs off of ICE and let them go arrest criminal aliens. That’s what’s going to happen.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.