Incoming border czar Tom Homan had a message Saturday for Democrat mayors and governors who are itching for a fight with him on deportations: "Game on."
"Let's see what happens," Homan told Newsmax's "America Right Now." "Because, you know what? We've explained, the president, myself, Steve Miller, we've all explained that public safety threats should be the priority, right out of the gate. What elected mayor or governor doesn't want public safety threats removed from their communities?"
Several Democrat governors, including Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Gavin Newsom of California, and J.B. Pritzker have said they will actively oppose the efforts of President-elect Donald Trump's administration to conduct mass deportations of immigrants in the country illegally.
In addition, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston this week told Denverite that he plans to send Denver Police officers to the county line to stop federal troops from entering the city to enforce deportations, comparing the matter to China's Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
He walked back his comments Friday to Denver NBC affiliate KUSA, saying a Tiananmen Square comparison is an "image I hope we can avoid."
Still, Johnston said he is encouraging people to protest deportations in Colorado but is willing to go to jail to stop any efforts from Trump that he thinks are wrong or illegal.
"Think about that," Homan said. "Their number one responsibility to their constituency is to protect them. We want to focus on the worst of the worst, and they're going to stand in our way."
Instead, Homan said the leaders must "help us or get out of the way."
"Don't step over a line because there's a line they can't cross," he said. "Don't impede us, actively impede us, because that is a crime. Do not knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien from ICE because that's a crime."
And while they can disagree with the deportation operation, "you have limitations on what you can do," said Homan. "Don't cross that line."
The incoming administration, he added, will enforce laws that the Biden administration has refused to back.
"You've got a federal judge in Texas that said not only are they ignoring the law, they're actively violating the law by releasing millions of people in this country over the abuse of the parole program," said Homan. "There's three routes that we're concentrating on right now. Number one, secure the border and shut the border down. Number two, do a deportation operation. Third, look for 300,000 missing children that this administration allowed to be trafficked into the United States and released to unvetted sponsors that they can't find. So day one, this all starts."
Trump, he added has made it clear that those immigrants who pose threats to public safety and national security will be the priority, along with those who are fugitives.
"What I mean is the over 1 million illegal aliens in this country who had due process at great taxpayer expense, were ordered removed by an immigration judge, but defied that order and became fugitives," he said. "We're going to concentrate on the worst first public safety threats and we know there's well over a million of them."
The mainstream media has been hitting Homan over the plans, and he told Newsmax that he doesn't care.
"I'm going to do this job," he said. "You're not going to bully me. You're not going to silence me. You're not going to make me go away. We're going to do this job."
But Homan said he does think weekly press conferences from the White House will be needed to explain what is going on, including who is being arrested and what crimes they have committed, as "the left is going to try to skew everything we do."
"They're going to try to capture the first female or child crying during operations," he said. "They're going to make this sound like a racist, inhumane operation. I guarantee you, this operation is going to be a targeted, well-targeted, well-planned operation, and it's going to be humane."
Homan also encouraged those people who would be targeted for deportation to leave the country on their own, even indicating that by doing so they could return legally one day and even potentially become a U.S. citizens.
"If we have to issue a formal removal or a formal order of deportation, you got a 20-year bar,' he said. "Go home, save yourself from having a 20-year bar put on you. It's the right thing to do not only for the country, it's the right thing to do for yourself so you can create future opportunities for you."
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