What does Tom Homan mean when he says he’s going to ‘deputize’ every U.S. citizen to help find 340K missing children?

Tom Homan has turned a few heads this week after announcing his plan to find 340,000 missing immigrant children by enlisting the help of the public and “deputizing” every U.S. citizen in order to do their part in finding these children.

The idea sounds like something an actual crazy person would come up with – to put it lightly, there’s a few holes in this plan. But surely Tom Homan has fully thought this through, after all, he was the former ICE director, and he’s come out of retirement to take on the role of “border czar” at the request of Trump, he knows what he’s doing. 

So he wouldn’t go on air with a mental idea like that if he didn’t have a solid explanation as to why it would work right? Maybe it just sounds like lunacy on the surface, but if we allow him to explain then it could start to make sense right? Marjorie Taylor Greene certainly seems to think the idea has got some legs, but then again, she’s got a few screws loose too.

What does Tom Homan mean?

Speaking on Victory News, Homan unveiled his bold plan, claiming that “every mom and dad knows what it’s like; if they have a gut feeling, they see something out there in public, that something [isn’t] right with that child – so we’re going to deputize every one of them.”

Well I think Homan has made things more confusing by trying to explain it. So let’s get this straight, is he saying he wants to rely on the public’s “gut feeling” to determine whether a child is missing? And what is this talk of deputizing everyone, is he going to give every citizen rights to apprehend a child they suspect is being trafficked or kidnapped? What could possibly go wrong there?

And what about those supposed 340,000 missing children? Homan and MTG are acting as if they’re protecting these missing children, but is that really the case? Turns out that’s a slight stretching of the truth. According to a fact check by APNews a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General states that Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to consistently monitor the whereabouts of unaccompanied migrant children after they were released from federal government custody. Calling these children “lost” or “missing” is misrepresenting the reality of the situation.

Can Tom Homan actually deputize everyone?

In specific situations a U.S. marshal can deputize an ordinary citizen on a temporary basis. But even then, according to Chron.com, “deputizing citizens is normally allowed only if they’re officers or employees of the Department of Justice; federal, state or local law enforcement; or employees of private security companies.” So Homan wouldn’t be able to deputize someone who works at Target for example.

So we’re not really any closer to figuring out what Tom Homan really meant when he said he would deputize everyone. That’s not possible for someone in his position to do, and even if he did, he’s not exactly made it clear what he expects everyone to do once they’re deputized. This is just another whackjob solution from a party of whackjobs.