Former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Thomas Homan slammed congressional Democrats Monday for “putting their political hatred of this president ahead of national security and public safety,” as a Central American migrant caravan plows toward the United States.

“It’s very frustrating, you know, doing this job for 34 years because a lot of this could have been prevented,” Homan (pictured above), now a Fox News contributor, said during an interview on that network’s “America’s Newsroom.” “I’ve said for over a year that if we didn’t fix the loopholes, it would happen. And here it is.”

Members of Congress “know what the loopholes are” in U.S. immigration laws “and they can close them,” but they choose not to do so, he said, adding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and the U.S. Border Patrol “need help.”

“You would think members of Congress, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, would want to help secure our border. I mean, that’s their number-one responsibility,” Homan said.

“Thank God we have a president sitting in the White House who understands this and has the backs of these 20,000 men and women that want to secure our border. I cannot believe we’re even discussing that this is an issue at this point,” he said.

An estimated 5,000-7,000 migrants from Central American countries are stopped at Mexico’s border with Guatemala, hoping ultimately to make it to the United States.

President Donald Trump declared the situation a “national emergency” Monday on Twitter and insisted that the U.S. “will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing” the foreign aid given to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador because they “were not able to do the job of stopping people from leaving their country and coming illegally to the U.S.”

“Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy [sic]. Must change laws!” Trump tweeted.

“Every time you see a Caravan, or people illegally coming, or attempting to come, into our Country illegally, think of and blame the Democrats for not giving us the votes to change our pathetic Immigration Laws! Remember the Midterms! So unfair to those who come in legally,” Trump added.

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With just two weeks to go until the midterm elections in November, Homan said he hopes “that the American people are paying attention” to Democrats’ refusal to “come to the table” because “the president is 100 percent right on this point.”

“The vast majority of Democrats don’t want to fix the system. They don’t want to give this president a win on immigration. They don’t want to give him a win on the border issue,” he insisted. “This is all about putting their political hatred of this president ahead of national security and public safety and ahead of the safety of these American patriots on the line that wear the uniform.”

“It’s just disgusting,” Homan added.

The former acting ICE director also said “we know for a fact based on intelligence reports” that drug cartels and smuggling organizations are “going to put themselves into that [caravan]” as it seeks U.S. entry.

Related: Trump Challenges Reporters to Show Truth on Caravan

“When you’ve got a large population like that coming to the United States illegally, there’s going to be a certain amount of criminals because they’re going to put themselves in that group,” Homan warned. “And while the border assets are tied up dealing with families, they’re pushing drugs and other bad people through another part of the border because the Border Patrol is totally tied up.”

The majority of migrants traveling with the caravan “are at the mercy of criminal organizations who don’t care about them at all,” he lamented.

“This is not just about law enforcement. It’s about saving lives,” Homan said, adding that “this is something nobody wants to talk about, especially Democrats, right?”

“They want to tell these people to come to this country offering low bars for asylum. They want to offer sanctuary cities, now they support sanctuary cities where they think they can go to a place and be protected from ICE. They don’t want to fund ICE for the number of beds they need. They want to abolish ICE. And this entices more people to make this dangerous journey,” he added.