Border Czar Tom Homan on DHS negotiations, ICE leaving Minneapolis and more

(CBS, KYMA) - Border czar Tom Homan spoke with Ed O'Keefe on Face the Nation Sunday about the negotiations over reopening the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

According to O'Keefe, the negotiations center around specific policy changes Democrats are demanding in regards to how immigration agents conduct operations.

The Democrats' demands, according to O'Keefe, include requiring agents to show their identification, wear body cameras, take off their masks, stop racial profiling and seek judicial warrants when entering private property.

This prompted O'Keefe to ask Homan if he's willing to consider adopting any of those demands, to which Homan said:

"I'm not a part of those negotiations. That's being as being done up on the hill between Senate and House and the White House. I'm not really part of those negotiations. But look, you know, they want to say, stop racial profiling. That's just not occurring. I mean, ICE will detain, briefly detain and question, but question somebody based on reasonable suspicion. It has nothing to do with racial profiling. As far as the mask look, you know, I don't like the masks either, but because threats against ICE officers, you know, are up over 1500% actual assaults and threats are up over 8000%. These men and women have to protect themselves. As far as identifying themselves, they all have placards identifying themselves as ICE, ERO, HSI, DEA, FBI, so they all have placards on them. So I'll let the White House and members of Congress, you know, fight that out. But I think some of the asks are just...I think they're unreasonable because there is no racial profiling. There is identifying marks, but masks, you know, why don't they talk about maybe passing legislation to make it illegal to dox agents or something like that? But the masks right now are for officer safety reasons."

During the interview, O'Keefe and Homan talked about ICE agents leaving Minneapolis.

Last week, Homan said Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota was ending, with a drawdown of federal agents set to happen throughout this week.

This led O'Keefe to ask Homan if things keep winding down, when would the surge be over, and Homan said:

"Well, look about as of we already removed well over 1000 people, and as of Monday, Tuesday, we'll remove several hundred more. We'll get back to the original footprint, with the exception of the agents there to do the fraud investigation, will stay there and continue their work until they're done. The agents investigating the church issue where the people went into the church, they'll stay and get that work done. But there will be a small force, a security force, what we call RFQs, that will...our security forces, that will respond to when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control, and they'll remain for a short period of time, just to make sure the coordination, the agreements we have with local state law enforcement, stay in place, and they respond to a public safety threat when needed. And so hopefully those security forces...security a small footprint, security forces can remove, can be removed really fairly quickly. I'm hoping. I think things are going the right direction, and I got faith they'll continue that way."

O'Keefe followed up by asking if Homan anticipates that there will be others on a scale seen in Minneapolis, and Homan said:

"I think it depends on the situation. I've said from day one that, you know we need to flood the zone in sanctuary cities with additional agents. The number of agents depend on the situation on the ground. How many known criminal targets are out there? Because we know we have a problem with sanctuary cities, because we know they're releasing public safety threats in the public so rather than arrest that one criminal in jail, one agent wrestling one criminal alien, the safety, and security of a jail, which is safer for the agent, safer for the aliens, safer for the community, they release them in the street. Now we got to send a whole team, or six or seven people. That is a win we had in Minnesota. Everybody...because now we have agreements and coordination with jails, we can rest that public safety threat in the safety security of jail, which means we don't have to send six or seven people out to look for them. So, I'm hoping other sanctuary cities look at what happened in Minnesota, and how we got to the place reds, which I think is a good place. I hope more people pay attention to that, and we work with the states to let our officers in the jail. You can't...a lot of politicians are out there on the left or the Democrats saying, 'Okay, ICE, we agree.' You should be focusing on public safety threats. You should be focusing on illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes in this country, but they lock us out of the jail. You can't square that. If you really want us to focus on the criminals, then let us in the jail. That's the safest, most secure place to do our work."

Later in the interview, O'Keefe and Homan talked about a Wall Street Journal report detailing widespread concerns regarding the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her chief advisor, Corey Lewandowski.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Homan rarely speaks with Secretary Noem and Lewandowski, despite overseeing immigration issues from the White House perspective, and the report says he has repeatedly complained to the White House about them.

When asked what his concerns were with Noem and Lewandowski, Homan said:

"It's one team, one fight. I'm not playing in that media. They're trying to divide this administration. They want to attack the men and women who work in this administration. Look, do me and Secretary Noem agree on everything? No. That's why we have discussions. That's why every day we have a multi-agency conference call and meeting. We discuss going forward, and we have different opinions. Well, those different opinions are worked out, and we move forward. The bottom line is, we have the most secure border in history in this nation. We got record numbers of criminal aliens arrested and deported in this country because this is one team, one fight. The results speak for themselves."

Homan also adds, "I have a disagreement with...we got many federal agencies, and it's not like a out of control disagreement. I want to do it this way. Someone wants to do it this way. Then we talk about what works best in this situation. We all come to agreement in the end, but it's a discussion of different ideas."

To watch more of O'Keefe's interview with Homan, click here.