California Governor Gavin Newsom escalated an already heated standoff with the Trump administration by directly challenging the president’s immigration enforcement chief, Tom Homan, to detain him over his refusal to crack down on anti-ICE demonstrators in the state.
“Come after me. Arrest me. Let’s just get it over with, tough guy,” Newsom declared in a defiant interview with NBC News on Sunday.
His remarks came shortly after Homan warned that both Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could be criminally liable for allegedly interfering with federal immigration operations across the city.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan asserted during a weekend interview, as scenes of protest and unrest unfolded in Los Angeles.
“You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”
Amid growing tensions, President Trump announced plans to send 2,000 California National Guard troops to support federal immigration efforts in Los Angeles, where ICE agents have faced off with demonstrators for three consecutive days.
Newsom rejected the move, warning that the deployment would only heighten tensions on the ground. He also accused the Trump administration of weaponizing federal authority for political purposes.
“He’s a tough guy. Why doesn’t he do that? He knows where to find me,” Newsom said in the NBC interview.
“But you know what? Let your hands off 4-year-old girls that are trying to get educated. Let your hands off these poor people. They’re just trying to live their lives, man. Trying to live their lives, paying their taxes. Been here for 10 years. The fear, the horror.”
“The hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up. They need to stop, and we need to push back. And I’m sorry to be so clear, but that kind of bloviating is exhausting. So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go,” he continued.
Homan, meanwhile, pushed back against the criticism and defended ICE’s recent actions, saying Newsom’s rhetoric undermined public safety.
“We’re arresting bad people. We’re enforcing laws and following up on a serious criminal investigation on cartel financing. So that’s exactly what ICE did. And ICE took a lot of bad people off the street that day,” he said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
“We arrested … gang members, arrested somebody that had an armed robbery conviction. So we made LA safer.”
“The men and women of ICE, the men and women of the border control made LA safer that day, but you’re not hearing any of this. All you hear is a rhetoric about ICE being racist and ICE being Nazis and terrorists — and Gov. Newsom feeds that,” Homan added.
In a countermove, Newsom announced plans to take legal action against the federal government over the troop deployment.
“They had to coordinate with the governor of the state,” he said.
“They never coordinated with the governor of the state.”
“This is about authoritarian tendencies. This is about command and control. This is about power. This is about ego,” Newsom concluded.
{Matzav.com}