PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – President Donald Trump’s so-called border czar is putting Portland front and center once again, warning of “collateral arrests” and of federal law enforcement agents being ordered to “flood the zone” in the event of a crack down on sanctuary cities in the Pacific Northwest.

Tom Homan, the White House’s Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, talked outside the White House on Wednesday.

He said he plans to “flood the zone” in sanctuary cities like Portland and Seattle.

“So we’re going to send the boots on the ground to the places that we know there’s a problem. Address the biggest problems first — and that’s your biggest cities or sanctuary cities whether it’s New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle,” he said. “I mean, they’re sanctuary cities, and we’re gonna flood the zone.”

Homan went on to say that he doesn’t want to get into specifics about plans, because he doesn’t want to give sanctuary jurisdictions a heads up about what’s on the way.

“I wanna make this clear. The sanction treaties, again, we’ll get something they don’t want when we find a bad person, and we will, if they’re with others that aren’t a criminal threat but in the country legally, they’re coming too. So more collateral arrests are gonna occur in sanctuary cities, because you forced us into the community,” Homan said. “It’s coming. I mean, I don’t get too specific, because we’re going to give them too much heads up, but it’s coming.”

Just last month, Homan paid a visit to the ICE facility in Southwest Portland. In response, Mayor Keith Wilson said, “Portland stands firm in protecting [its] sanctuary city status.”

“Our City employees, including the Portland Police Bureau, will not use their time or resources to assist in Federal immigration enforcement action unless required by federal courts,” Wilson said in his statement. “As such, our sanctuary city status does not violate federal law.”

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