Tom Homan, the former “border czar” of the Trump administration, said on Sunday that he does not think the ICE officer involved in the recent fatal shooting in Maine should have passed vetting.
During an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Homan was questioned by host Dana Bash regarding the officer’s eligibility, after reports emerged that two of his former wives had accused him of abuse.
“Should a person with such a record be an ICE agent?” Bash asked.
“No. If those facts are true, I don’t believe he should ever have cleared vetting,” Homan responded.
Homan added that a ongoing investigation into the July 13 shooting death of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero is examining how the vetting process failed.
“When someone is hired, they undergo a vetting process that reviews all relevant information, which is part of the ongoing investigation,” Homan said. “How did the vetting process fail? Was that information not available? Did they not know?”
He further noted, “There is also a separate administrative investigation into what occurred here. Did we have that information? Did we not have it? If the allegations are true, it would have been virtually impossible for him to pass vetting.”
The officer who killed Durán Guerrero, a 25‑year‑old Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, has been reported by news outlets as David Brouillette. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, has not publicly confirmed Brouillette’s identity.
Since the shooting, two of Brouillette’s ex‑wives have publicly described alleged abuse in their relationships with him. Lucinda Brouillette, for example, claimed he engaged in a “persistent pattern of abuse, intimidation, manipulation, fear and control.”
“If you asked me whether I believe David Brouillette is capable of this level of violence, my answer is unequivocally yes,” she said in a statement to NPR.
Although Homan declined to comment directly on the case, describing it as “a rare instance,” he said, “If this person had that kind of history, it would have been a vetting issue and should have been brought to the attention of those who decide.”
He added, “We’ll see. Everything is being reviewed. We’ll see where it stands.”
The shooting has renewed scrutiny of ICE’s hiring practices.
Democrats have called for reviews of the agency’s vetting process. Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said Brouillette’s alleged abusive past “directly calls into question the vetting and training ICE provides its recruits.”
Neither the fatal shooting in Maine nor another incident involving an ICE officer in Texas earlier in July produced body‑camera footage. This prompted Homan to announce that the agency would require officers to wear body cameras during vehicle stops.
In the Texas case, which led to the death of Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare stated that laboratory tests of a white substance found in a van tested negative for narcotics or illicit drugs, even though an FBI search‑warrant application suggested the bag could contain methamphetamine.
Salgado’s family said the substance was a salt mixture that he and his construction‑crew colleagues used as an electrolyte to stay hydrated in extreme heat.
