President Donald Trump’s border czar was left stunned by MSNBC host Ari Melber after being schooled on an immigration case that swept the courts.
Melber pressed Tom Homan on Wednesday night moments after Newark Mayor Ras Baraka had been a guest on the same episode. Baraka had just had a trespassing charge against him dismissed by a federal judge, arising from the mayor’s visit to an ICE facility earlier this month.
U.S. District Judge Andre Espinosa, who dismissed the case without prejudice on Wednesday, labeled the incident an “embarrassing retraction of charges.” The judge told the government lawyer, “Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas.”
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Baraka told Melber he had not received an apology from the government.
“They haven’t and I don’t think they will. Obviously someone should apologize,” Baraka said. “I think this has clearly been driven by the desire to hurt people, to embarrass people, to humiliate folks and they’ll go further than that if they can.”
He added, “They came in saying, ‘We’re gonna arrest anybody, the attorney general, the sitting governor,’ they went after judges and so to get a mayor in their mind (it’s) we’re gonna get him and everybody else is gonna fall in line.”
Melber then discussed the incident with Homan during their interview.
“It was an immigration-related offense,” Melber said, “where the Trump DOJ accused him of trespassing, physically arrested him, indicted him, took him to court, and here we are, a week-and-a-half later, the whole case falls apart. He says no one has apologized to him from the administration. What do you say to him tonight?”
A feisty Homan called the mayor’s interview with Melber “ridiculous.” He stated “Look, he’s running for higher political office, he got exactly what he wanted. He went there to get on camera and cause a ruckus, and that’s what he got.”
The interview descended as the two men began talking over each other over. Homan said the TV host was assuming the mayor’s case had “fallen over” but Melber quickly schooled the Trump official, clarifying that he was literally quoting from the Justice Department document that admitted they’d made a mistake in the case.
Homan stated “Well look, here’s what I know about the case, the mayor was on the property, he was asked numerous times to leave and refused to leave, and as far as the facility itself, I’ll put that facility up against any New Jersey facility, any county jail, any state prison. This facility has the highest detention standards in the industry. There’s nothing to force your way in on.”
He concluded, “We do oversight visits all the time. Do it the right way. Contact ICE, go through the screening, enter the facility and see anything you want to see. What they did was force their way into the facility, refuse to leave when asked to leave, and the congresswoman, she put her hands on an ICE officer.”
