Border Czar Homan Says Trump Admin Has 'No Intention' To Arrest Newsom

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

White House border czar Tom Homan said on Monday that he has “no intention to arrest” California Gov. Gavin Newsom after the Democratic governor dared him to arrest him as protests and riots persist in Los Angeles.

Homan told CBS News that talk about arresting Newsom has “been taken out of context” and that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass “haven’t crossed a line yet.”

“If you cross that line, I don’t care who they are—the governor, the mayor, whatever—and when you commit a crime against ICE officers, we will seek prosecution,” Homan added, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In another interview with NewsNation, Homan said that “there is no threat to arrest Gov. Newsom” but that a previous comment about arresting anybody who impedes ICE efforts to enforce laws against illegal immigrants still stands.

“If he crosses that line of impeding ICE enforcement efforts, if he knowingly harbors and conceals an alien, that’s a crime,” he told the outlet.

“We would ask … the attorney general to seek prosecution,” he added. “My words were taken out of context, but it is what it is.”

At one point on Sunday, Newsom was asked by an NBC News reporter about the possibility of being arrested. “Come and get me, tough guy,” he replied.

And when a reporter at the White House asked President Donald Trump on Monday about Newsom being arrested by Homan, the president said, “I’d do it if I were Tom,” adding: “Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.”

The Trump administration and Newsom have been sharply critical of one another in the handling of unrest in Los Angeles over the past several days, which was sparked by protests against ICE efforts across the city. Trump and Homan have said that Newsom hasn’t been able to quell the violence, prompting the president to deploy the National Guard and Marines over the past several days.

In response, Newsom said that the troop deployments are a form of overreach and that Trump’s actions are an incitement to more violence. The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the deployment on Monday.

Newsom said that the deployment of Marines, which was confirmed by U.S. Northern Command on Monday, is a form of escalation that he described as “completely unwarranted, uncalled for, and unprecedented.”

Homan has told media outlets that ICE agents were serving criminal search warrants at a Los Angeles worksite last week as part of a probe into customs fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering.

Speaking to the “Dr. Phil” show, Homan said that 41 people were arrested and that the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Internal Revenue Service were also involved.

“We took a lot of bad people off the street that day,” he told NewsNation in another interview, adding that those enforcement measures were “targeted” instead of being a random sweep.

In a directive on Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

The Northern Command said in its Monday statement that the 700 or so Marines “will seamlessly integrate” with troops “who are protecting federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area.”

Meanwhile, Monday’s demonstrations were far less raucous, with thousands peacefully attending a rally at City Hall and hundreds protesting outside a federal complex, which includes a detention center where some illegal immigrants are being held following workplace operations across the city.