Homan on how ICE has improved since January

National Security Homan on how ICE has improved since January Comments: by Tara Suter - 07/23/26 9:53 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Tara Suter - 07/23/26 9:53 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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White House border czar Tom Homan on Wednesday discussed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has changed since January, when two U.S. citizens were killed in Minneapolis by federal immigration authorities.

“You know, I was honest with the American people, you know, in the last few months that the ICE arrest numbers are down because the department was shut down, right?” Homan said on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.”

“The Democrats shut the department down mainly because of, you know, what occurred in Minneapolis. I was a part of the negotiation team on the hill. And everything they brought up — they wanted changes before they opened the government — was a reflection on Minnesota,” he added.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration faced backlash for its immigration operations in Minnesota, where Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed by federal immigration authorities. Pretti and Good’s deaths inflamed already intense anger toward the administration over its immigration agenda.

In May, a record-long Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown came to an end after months of negotiations between congressional Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats had opposed funding for ICE and Border Patrol, both under DHS, amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and following the deaths of Pretti and Good. In the agreement to end the shutdown, the two agencies did not receive additional funding.

In June, President Trump signed into law a congressional budget package to fund ICE and Border Control for the remainder of his term. The reconciliation funding legislation handed the agencies almost $70 million, which was split between ICE, Border Control and DHS’s discretionary spending budget.

“But, as soon as we got the reconciliation done, we got the funding, numbers are up. I mean, in June, we had the highest numbers of arrests in the history of the agency, of ICE. And July’s tracking to even beat that. So, we’re hitting on all cylinders now. We’re deportation-maxing. Since we’re fully funded, we just got to keep going,” Homan said Wednesday.

However, intense scrutiny toward ICE has returned in recent weeks, with two fatal shootings by the agency in Maine and Texas.

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