One of ICE's former acting directors was also among attendees at white nationalist event

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/7/2084477/-One-of-ICE-s-former-acting-directors-was-also-among-attendees-at-white-nationalist-event

One of ICE's former acting directors was also among attendees at white nationalist event
Gabe Ortiz
Daily Kos Staff
Monday March 07, 2022 · 3:54 PM EST


Thomas Homan served as an acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the previous administration. He was in fact just one of nine acting directors under the insurrectionist president, but certainly among the most notorious, falsely defending family separation as “law,” melting down in front of Congress, and warning undocumented families to “be afraid.” What a swell guy.

So it’s not surprising—but nevertheless still disgusting—that Homan showed up to the recent white supremacist America First Political Action Conference also attended by Reps. Majorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. But unlike them, he really wants to you to believe that his appearance there was all just a big misunderstanding. Sorta.

HuffPo reports that Homan, who served as acting ICE director from late January 2017 to mid-summer 2018, was set to speak to the crowd of white supremacists, but left early after supposedly Googling organizer Nick Fuentes’ name. Homan really wanted to get it out that he didn’t do the booking, it was an assistant, but he also wasn’t totally blaming the assistant, because “so many names of conservative groups sound the same,” he said. Okay.

Why Thomas Homan, who hasn’t held office since 2018, needs an assistant in the first place is itself questionable, but I digress. Homan claims that while he saw some news articles about Fuentes’ despicable views, he waved them away. “Homan said he himself has unfairly been called a bigot and a racist for ‘enforcing immigration laws,’” the report said. Lots of people think that family separation is a bad thing, Tom—and it was a policy created by the administration you worked for.

But anyway, Homan claims it wasn’t any of Fuentes’ gross record that made him bolt: It was a recent remark he made in favor of Russia’s brutal invasion of the independent nation of Ukraine. So he left, adding that he never met Fuentes. But Homan also took pains to walk back his walk-out, HuffPo continued. “A few minutes later Homan called me back to make sure I understood something. ‘I’m not saying this is a bad group,’ he said of Fuentes and the groypers,” the report said. “’I’m saying I don’t know.’”

Oh, but it is a bad group, and not exactly helping Homan’s defense here is that he already has a history of associating with racist organizations (aside from the previous administration itself), including while on the job. Shortly before his retirement, Homan spoke at an event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant hate group founded by eugenist John Tanton. The group has been notorious for circulating swill from antisemites and Holocaust-deniers, one of whom called Jewish people “truly subversive,” “manipulative,” and “evil.”

Both Homan and the CIS “moderator” opened their “conversation” with complaints about people calling their racist organization “racist,” as well as making light of and dismissing a letter from a member of Congress urging him to pull out of the event. CIS’ website also shows appearances with Homan the following year, as well as in 2020 to hawk some book. Funny how associating with bigoted groups always turns into someone else apparently just not understanding things correctly, and not a reflection of the guy who keeps showing up to their events.