Tom Homan Admits to CNN That ICE Agent In Maine Shooting Shouldn’t Have ‘Cleared Vetting’ Due to Prior Allegations of Abuse

Border czar Tom Homan admitted to CNN’s Dana Bash that the Maine ICE agent accused of prior abuse should not have “cleared vetting,” as he faces review for allegedly killing a Colombian national.

Federal officials confirmed that 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero was not the intended target of the immigration enforcement operation in Biddeford, ME, after he was shot and killed during a traffic stop earlier this month. Guerrero’s father told The New York Times that his son was in the U.S. “legally” and authorized to work at the time he was killed.

On Sunday’s State of the Union, Bash said, “Court documents reveal one of the ICE officers connected to the fatal shooting in Maine was accused of abuse by two ex wives. One of his ex-wives told my colleague Erin Burnett that she experienced severe domestic violence in her marriage and that he always displayed violent behavior, and even that if anything ever happened to her, he’d be the one to look at. I should say he denied the allegations, but at one point, a judge ordered him to temporarily relinquish any firearms. Should someone with those issues be an ice agent?” Bash asked Homan.

“No, if those those are facts, I don’t think he should have ever cleared vetting,” Homan answered. “When they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at all that stuff. So, I know based on that information, that’s part of the ongoing investigation. You know, did the vetting process fail? Was that information not available? Did they not know? So, there’s a separate administrative investigation on what happened here. Did we have that information, did we not have information. But vetting process — If that was factual, he would have an almost impossible time to pass vetting.”

Bash asked, “So does that raise questions about ICE’s vetting procedures, especially as it has in the past several months, ramped up its law enforcement officers who are around the country looking for undocumented immigrants?

“Well look, you know, ICE has about 30,000 employees. They all go through vetting. This is kind of a rare instance, but again, it’s under review.”

Bash then focused on ICE training.

“We know that that training is being reevaluated. If that is the case, that suggests that the training wasn’t adequate for all of these months, as ice has been out in the country trying to find as many undocumented immigrants as possible to deport them, isn’t that a concerning —?”

“No, I disagree with that,” Homan interjected. “I disagree with that. Every law enforcement agency reassesses their training, every law enforcement either adds or changes to training curriculum.”

He added, “So, I wouldn’t say now that we’re evaluating some additional training that mistakes were made. We’ll see.

“Well, we we’ve seen with our own eyes mistakes were made — deadly mistakes were made,” Bash said. “You know, at least at least five of them.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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