CNN’s Kaitlan Collins questioned Tom Homan, the border czar, about why ICE agents didn’t use body cameras during two deadly shootings in Maine and Texas.Collins was on The Lead with Jake Tapper, where they showed video of the interview.She pointed out that there were no body cameras during the shootings and that more people are asking for transparency from ICE.Homan said the delay was because of Democrats.
He said:
When the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security, I was up on the Hill as part of the negotiating team to reopen the government, and they wanted body cameras. There was $120 million in the budget they were holding up to buy those body cameras. Now since the Big Beautiful Bill passed, now the Reconciliation Bill, the body cameras have been ordered. There’s a deployment schedule on the books.
Collins asked, “Don’t you see that it’s extremely urgent, given that we don’t have video of these situations beyond what witnesses say?”
Homan replied, “As soon as they had funding, they bought them.”
Collins pointed out, “But it’s been two months since April.”
Homan responded, “It would have been a lot quicker,” and again blamed Democrats.
Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 26, was shot and killed in Biddeford, Maine, earlier this week.
An ICE agent said he was “fearing for public safety” after Guerrero tried to run away.
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant, was also shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston.
Officials said the suspect tried to run over an agent with his car during a traffic stop, but the family and a lawyer for the others in the car disputed that claim.
CNN previously reported, based on a source close to the situation, that ICE is ending traffic stops as part of its deportation efforts.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement after the shootings that “body cameras have been deployed to more than half the field offices, with the remaining half to receive them in the next 60 days.”
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