This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 14 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
Over the weekend, the Rod of Iron Ministries held their annual Freedom Festival in Pennsylvania. The group describes the event as the “largest open carry rally in America.” Holding a golden AR-15 and donning a crown made of bullets, the group’s leader welcomed attendees to the three-day event and called on God to save America by “using President Trump.”
“I will run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen,” Homan said.
Also in attendance was Tom Homan, who served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Donald Trump’s first term. He is largely considered an architect of Trump’s policy to tear little kids away from their moms and dads at the border.
Homan was one of the event’s featured speakers on Saturday. He bragged about his vision for leading a deportation program under Trump. “I will run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen,” Homan said.
That’s not just wishful thinking on his part. Trump has said publicly that if he is elected to a second term, he will indeed be bringing Homan back on board to oversee his immigration policy, the centerpiece of which is ordering the U.S. military to build camps to hold tens of millions of people and then to deport tens of millions of people. It’s one of, if not the, defining policy position of the Trump campaign this time around.
If you are wondering how the Trump administration would go about this, how they would actually carry out the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen, whether it would be approached carefully and soberly, consider for a moment that the guy who could reasonably be in charge of the camps, in charge of the deportations, was a headliner at the “assault rifles are God’s will” rally this weekend, where their leader was wearing a crown of bullets.
During his remarks, Homan made a promise to the crowd, “I’ve said it 100 times: Trump comes back, I come back.”
