ABC’s Martha Raddatz Grills Border Czar Tom Homan On Immigration Raids in Testy Exchange: ‘You Gonna Go Into’ Elementary Schools?

ABC’s Martha Raddatz confronted President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, about immigration raids happening across the country.

In a tense battle on ABC’s This Week, Raddatz asked Homan about the prospect of raids in churches and schools.

“The administration said it will no longer tell ICE agents they have to avoid sensitive locations, including schools, hospitals, churches,” Raddatz said. “Benjamine Huffman, the acting Homeland Security Secretary, said in a statement, ‘criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.’ What criminals are hiding in schools? Middle schools, elementary schools — you gonna to go into those?”

Homan defended the move to allow agents to raid those locations.

“How many MS-13 members are the age 14-17?” Homan said. “Many of them. So look, if it’s a national security threat, public safety threat and what, what you need to understand is that it’s case by case, name another agency, another law enforcement agency, that has those type of requirements, that they can’t walk into a school or doctor’s office or a medical campus. No other agency is held to those standards. These are well trained officers with a lot of discretion, and when it comes to a sensitive location, there’s still gonna be supervisory review.

“So it’s not like it’s an open, open issue, but ICE officers should have discretion to decide if a national security threat or a public safety threats that’s in one of these facilities, then it should be an option of them to make the arrest.”

Raddatz followed up by citing “fear in the immigrant community” about potential raids.

“Opening up to anyone who’s in the country illegally and going into schools and grabbing them, does that (mean) kids, adults?” Raddatz asked.

“The message needs to be clear,” Homan replied. “There’s consequences of entering the country illegally. If we don’t show there’s consequences, you’re never gonna fix the border problem.”

Watch above, via ABC.