Border czar Tom Homan warned that media may no longer be allowed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations targeting illegal immigrants after a major raid was leaked.
On Wednesday morning, federal agencies conducted an operation in Aurora, Colorado, that ICE hoped would result in the arrests of over 100 suspected members of the notorious Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang. However, when authorities showed up at multiple apartment complexes known to be frequented by gang members in the country illegally, they were nowhere to be seen, with ICE only detaining one suspect and making 30 arrests total, according to a Fox News report.
Homan, who oversees President Donald Trump’s immigration plan, said the following day that the operation was leaked. Consequently, members of the media may no longer be allowed to embed with ICE operations, he warned.
“It’s all about OpSec, operation security, so we may have to stop the media ride-alongs because I’m not pointing the finger at it, but the less people that know about these operations, the safer this for our agents,” Homan told reporters Thursday.
Acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello similarly told the outlet that he got “the impression that there were some intel leaks” and that he believed TdA “probably” knew ICE was coming.
The concerns about sensitive information being breached by the press followed multiple reports that ICE’s Colorado raid was originally planned for Jan. 30 but was moved up to Wednesday due to security concerns after it was leaked to the media.
” … the Aurora operation was called off temporarily due to media leaks. One source said the leaks posed an operational security risk for officers involved,” NBC News reported.
During an interview with Fox News’s Harris Faulkner on Thursday, Homan said he identified the source who leaked ICE’s Wednesday operation in Aurora and was “dealing with that today.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I’m addressing Op-Sec today. Operation security. How these leaks are happening. We’ve already identified how this operation got leaked. I’ll deal with that today,” he said. “It’s obvious we can’t be having all these different news outlets out there with us on various raids … we got a lot of Op-Sec concerns we’re dealing with right now.”
“This is not a game when we show up at these sites,” Homan continued. “This is a dangerous job for the men and women of ICE and Border Patrol and all the DOJ agencies,” he said. “To have this type of interference puts our office at great risk, not only the officers. It puts the aliens at great risk because anything can happen when we take our eyes off the goal here.”