Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson said Thursday that incoming border czar Tom Homan is starting with Democratic Chicago to deport illegal immigrants in order to set a precedent for other cities threatening to block his efforts.
Since President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Homan as border czar, the former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director has warned Democratic mayors to step aside as some have threatened to refuse cooperation with ICE on mass deportations. On “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” Hanson compared Homan’s focus on Chicago to Voltaire’s reference to British Admiral John Byng’s death, using it as a lesson to others due to being killed by his own troops.
“He says that the British had this peculiar custom that every once in a while they hang an Admiral to encourage the others and he was referring to Admiral Byng somewhere around 1750 or 60. He was kind of a corpulent, status quo, functionary, talentless, but part of the nomenclature of the British aristocracy. The British did not perform well on his squadron,” Hanson said.
“I think it was in Minorca where they lost. He couldn’t defend the garrison in Minorca against the French,” Hanson added. “So they decided to try him even though they had never done this recently and they didn’t hang him as I remember. They shot him. He was kind of just, ‘Why are you shooting me? I’m just a retiring 50-something and corporate fat Admiral like the rest of you.’ So Voltaire being very witty said, basically every once in a while you’ve got to show something.”
Hanson argued that Homan’s focus on Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will set a precedent, emphasizing that the incoming border czar is listening to Democratic constituents concerned about illegal immigration in their city.
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“So what Homan is doing is thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, who is the Admiral Byng of all of these 600 jurisdictions that I have to encourage you? I know the most obnoxious, the most crazy, the most nullification advocate in one of the second or third largest cities is Chicago, that crazy Mayor Johnson,’” Hanson continued. “‘So we’re going to tell him first, you try to stop the federal government and you think you’re South Carolina 1832 or you think you’re firing on Fort Sumner. You’re going to regret it because you were breaking federal law and we have a lot more federal laws that you would want us to follow in your interest than you do federal laws to break.’”
“That’s going to be interesting because what Homan is basically doing is talking over the mayor’s head to the black constituencies of Chicago and saying, don’t worry, your mayor doesn’t, he’s going to break the law, but I’m going to follow it and I’ll put him in jail for your benefit so that you don’t have to worry about Venezuelans and Colombians shooting you or taking over your social services,” Hanson added.
Last week Homan invited Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker to support his deportation plans during a holiday party in Chicago, but Johnson has yet to respond.
In addition to the Chicago mayor, Democratic Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston have vowed to push back against the plans, with Johnston claiming that the city’s police and residents will not assist in the process. Homan has since warned mayors attempting to push back to “get the hell out the way,” noting there will be “consequences of people who violate the law and try to prevent us from doing our job.”
During a Fox interview Wednesday evening, Chicago resident Vashon Tuncle pleaded with Homan on “The Ingraham Angle” to help the city, highlighting how illegal immigrants have impacted the area.
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