Lawmakers' failure to close immigration law loopholes has led to the threat being posed by a massive immigrant caravan headed for the United States border, former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan said Monday.
"I've said for over a year that if we didn't fix the loopholes, it would happen," Homan, now a Fox News contributor, told the network's "America's Newsroom."
"Here it is...members of Congress know what the loopholes are and they can close them."
President Donald Trump Monday declared the caravan as a national emergency, and has said there are criminals and people from the Middle East included in the caravan, and Homan agreed.
"There will be a certain amount of criminals," said Homan. "They will put themselves in that group. We know for a fact based on intelligence reports these cartels smuggling organizations will push a large group of family units in one area to tie the border assets up. While the assets are tied up dealing with families they push drugs and other bad people through another part of the border."
Meanwhile, Democrats want to tell the migrants to come to the United States, Homan said.
"They want to offer sanctuary cities and support sanctuary cities where they think they can go to a place and be protected from ICE," Homan said. "They don't want to fund ICE for the number of beds they need. They want to abolish ICE. This entices more people to make this dangerous journey. They don't come by themselves. They hire criminal organizations to get to the country."
He added that such caravans are dangerous for those involved, and leave many "at the mercy of criminal organizations who don't care about them at all."