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Illegal immigrants should be living in fear of being deported, the chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday, pushing back against a growing sentiment among Democrats on Capitol Hill and activists across the country who have complained about agents enforcing the laws on the books.

Thomas D. Homan, acting director at ICE, said anyone in the country without authorization can be arrested and those who have been ordered deported by judges must be removed if laws are to have meaning.

His comments marked a major shift for an agency that President Obama forbade from enforcing the law when it came to more than 9 million of the countrys estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. Unshackled from Mr. Obamas strictures, agents have dramatically increased the number of arrests.

Advocacy groups are enraged and demand leniency for traumatized immigrants.

Mr. Homan makes no apologies.

If youre in this country illegally and you committed a crime by being in this country, you should be uncomfortable, you should look over your shoulder. You need to be worried, Mr. Homan testified to the House Appropriations Committee. No population is off the table.

The Trump administration is asking for significant boosts in spending for both border and interior enforcement, but it is meeting resistance from Democrats who oppose a crackdown.

Democrats will not accept a penny of funding for a new deportation force or a border wall, said Rep. Nita M. Lowey of New York, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

Border Patrol acting Chief Carla Provost defended the 74 miles of fencing that President Trump wants to erect next year, saying the wall will plug holes where illegal activity is still a problem in San Diego and parts of Texas.

She said the southwestern border is at medium risk of penetration and needs the wall to assist. She said construction on the 74 miles would start in either March or April.

Mr. Homan, meanwhile, said he needs a major infusion of detention beds to hold the larger population of illegal immigrants, now that his agents have been unshackled from the restrictions under Mr. Obama.

He said the number of countries refusing to take back their deportees has been cut in half, while the number of jurisdictions looking to have their police and sheriffs deputies trained to process illegal immigrants in their jails has nearly doubled and will likely triple by the end of the year.

In addition, some 400,000 illegal immigrants ordered removed by judges but who were ignored under the Obama administration are now back on the list of priorities.

All of that means more illegal immigrants to be detained in preparation for deportation.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Maryland Democrat, told Mr. Homan not to try deporting drunken drivers.

DWI or traffic is not really considered to be the type of people that are hurting our country, he said.

Mr. Homan, though, said drunken driving sounds like a public safety risk. They should be removed, he said.

Mr. Homan said anyone in the country without authorization is a target for enforcement.

We shouldnt wait for them to become a criminal, he said.

That angered immigrant rights advocates, who said it showed antipathy toward illegal immigrants.

Wow. How revealing, said Frank Sharry, executive director at Americas Voice. Homan makes it clear that the ICE strategy is to indiscriminately target the entire undocumented population in America and to intentionally spread fear throughout millions of deeply rooted families.

He called Mr. Homans testimony extremist.

Mr. Homan pushed back against such criticism. He said his agents are enforcing the laws as written and no other branch of law enforcement faces the abusive questions his employees do.

He said the illegal immigrants deserve the blame for separating families. When a U.S. citizen commits a crime and goes to jail, he said, the police who catch him arent blamed for keeping him from his family.

Mr. Homan said the increased risk of enforcement is part of the reason illegal immigration across the southwestern border is at its lowest level in decades.

Democrats, though, said his officers need to show more discretion.

Ms. Lowey raised the case of a 19-year-old man in New York who was arrested on the day of his high school prom, which she said sent the wrong signal.

She said the man had kept out of trouble and was arrested while waiting at a bus stop for school.

Mr. Homen defended the arrest as valid. He said the young man committed a crime when he sneaked across the border and ignored an immigration judges order to be removed.

He lost his case, and because we dont like the results of that case we forget about it? Mr. Homan asked Ms. Lowey. I dont know where else in the American justice system any other agency is told to ignore a judges ruling.

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No apologies: ICE chief says illegal immigrants should live in fear of deportation - Washington Times