CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Grills Trump Border Czar Tom Homan On Raids At Schools And Churches: ‘What Is The Standard?’

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins grilled Trump border czar Tom Homan about changing policy to allow raids on churches and elementary schools, asking, “What is the standard” for Trump’s deportation forces to crash those sites?

On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins conducted a tough but respectful interview of Homan that spanned two full segments.

Toward the end of their chat, Collins honed in on Homan’s raid policy, asking how conducting “arrests and enforcement at churches and schools” helps public safety and national security:

COLLINS: On what you said earlier about your big priority right now is deporting public safety threats and national security threats, how does changing the ICE policy that allows agents to conduct arrests and enforcement at churches and schools help with that?

HOMAN: There’s no safe haven for public safety threats and national security threats. People say, well, would you really go into a high school?

Well, people need to look at the MS-13 members and Tren de Aragua members who enter this country, a majority of them between the ages of 15 and 17. Many are attending our schools, and they’re selling drugs in the schools. And they’re doing strong-armed robberies of other students.

So we’re not going into schools or hospitals as a matter of practice, but if it’s a significant public safety threat or a significant homeland security threat, there’s no safe haven. We will go where we need to go to take them off the street.

COLLINS: But you obviously are someone — you have been working on the border for years, sir. I mean, you got an award from President Obama, for people who don’t know watching.

And you also have worked through these administrations. This was the policy that’s been in place, I believe, since 2011. And it wasn’t changed before. I mean, do you have any reason to believe that elementary schools or churches are harboring these violent immigrants who are here illegally?

HOMAN: Well, like I said, when the circumstances arise, we got a national security threat or significant public safety threat, we’re going to go where we got to go, whether it’s a school, a church, a hospital.

The national security is important. And, look, name another law enforcement agency. Does the FBI have those requirements? No. Does DEA have those requirements? No. So ICE shouldn’t have those requirements either. We have a national security responsibility. And we’re going to take those people off the street. If it’s out of school, that’s what we’re going to do.

Again, it takes a lot to get approval to go into a school or a church. But if there’s a national security threat, we’re going.

COLLINS: What does it take? What is the standard, I guess, to go into an elementary school?

Because what we had heard from immigration advocates is that this is going to provide a chilling effect to parents in the school drop-off line or something of that matter.

HOMAN: It shouldn’t be a chilling effect unless your child is a terrorist or a public safety threat.

If they are a public safety threat, a national security threat, they should be chilled. They should be afraid, because we’re looking for them.

COLLINS: Well, if their parent is here and they’re an undocumented immigrant, I think, was more of the argument that they were making.

HOMAN: They’re not off the table either. I mean, they’re in the country illegally, they have got a problem.

I mean, it’s not OK — look, we — it’s not OK to enter this country illegally. It’s a crime. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I’m in Switzerland illegally. So we’re going to enforce the laws of this country.

So the schools and the churches and the sensitive location was a policy only for ICE, only for immigration, right? But national security threats and public safety threats have no safe haven in this country, and we will go where we got to go.

COLLINS: Have you gone into any schools or churches yet that you know of personally?

HOMAN: Not yet — not yet in this operation.

COLLINS: Mr. Tom Homan, thank you for coming and taking our questions tonight. We hope to have you back here on THE SOURCE soon, and we do appreciate your time.

HOMAN: Thanks for having me.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.