Press Briefing: Tom Homan Speaks to Reporters Outside the White House - May 7, 2026

Do you have any comment, sir, uh, s- -- sir? Mr. Homan, we're, we're almost one month away from the FIFA World Cup here in the United States. Are you going to deploy ICE agents to the stadiums to conduct raids?

What now?

ICE agents to the World Cup stadiums. Are you thinking of deploying them to the [Inaudible] --

We don't do targeted enforcement operations. We don't do those. We don't do that, that type of stuff.

Mr. Homan. Mr. Homan, uh, do you have any comment on the Dignity Act and Maria Salazar [Inaudible] Do you support it?

President Trump don't care and I don't care 'cause there will be no amnesty.

Mr Homan, you said this week that we [Inaudible]

No, I think New York is getting ready to sign legislation and we have 287 (g) groups and some sheriffs in New York. And New York is getting ready to sign legislation that is going to end those agreements. Uh, they're going to end any cooperation with local law enforcement and ICE. Um, they even gonna stop us from buying beds to [Inaudible] which can mean several things.

Okay. If they want to do that, we'll simply fly them out of the state. Rather than keeping them in the local community with their families in the jungle, we'll arrest them and fly them to Texas. I mean, I don't see how that is good for anybody. But, you know, Governor Hochul has said, you, you, pull back her, her clips from the past year. "ICE should be concentrating on criminals, ICE should be concentrating on criminals." I support that.

Well, how do you square that while locking us out of the jail? How do you square that with ending 287 (g)? And it's all based on a bunch of lies. The lies from the, the, the left that says, "ICE is out of, you know, ICE is arresting people in churches and schools and hospitals." And I challenge anybody, any of you.

Give me one example where ICE has arrested somebody in the church.

Mr. --

Give me one example, we arrested anybody inside a hospital or elementary school. The only people that violated the sanctuary of church was Don Lemon and that group. We have not. We try very, now look, let me make it clear. If you're a significant public safety threat or national security threat, there's no sanctuary in this country.

If we can find you, we're going to find you. But we try very hard to do things the right way and, and not have to go into an elementary school or a church. And, and the numbers prove it. We look at the number, and, and, and, and the other thing, you know, about, uh, you know, presidents can't wreak out mass deportation, another mistruth.

You look at the numbers right now, about 60% of people who are arrested is criminal and 40% not criminal. I think that's a pretty good mix. Should it be 40% criminals and 60% not criminals? No. The president's keeping to his commitment when prioritizing public safety 'cause that's exactly what we're doing.

But sanctuary cities like New York is dangerous and now there's a back and forth. What I, what I said is that because we lose the efficiency of the jail, we lose the efficiency of the 287 (g) program, we got to send more agents to New York. So rather than one agent arresting one bad guy in the safety and security of the jail, which is safer for the alien and safer for the agent, certainly safer for the community, they're going to release them into the street, which means now you got to send a few jobs team to arrest him because you're arresting somebody on his turf where he has access to who knows what weapons.

So now we got to do six or seven people that could have been done by one in the jail. So now, now the Governor Hochul [Inaudible] saying I'm threatening her. I'm not threatening her. I'm responding to the ridiculous legislation that's going to force more agents in the street. So we have to send more agents there to do what a few jobs team has to do, which is six compared to one, seven compared to one.

And what happens when you do that is we will find the bad guy in the street or at his home or at his place of business and what are we going to find? Many instance- -- instances, other illegal aliens that weren't a target of that operation, but guess what? They're going to be arrested too. We're not turning a blind eye.

So what's it going to result in? More agents in the street and more collateral arrest. That, that's what they're going to get.

What would your advice be for the UK with our illegal migration?

Take a page out of the Trump playbook. Most secure border in the history of this nation.

Mr. Homan, Mis- -- how have you done that, Mr. Homan?

Huh?

How have you done that when we can't get it right in the UK?

We got a strong president. I mean, I, I, I'm not going to comment on your, your, your leadership there, but President Trump, I've worked for six presidents, I've worked for 11 different administrations, no one does it better than President Trump because he put America first, he shut the border down and he got the most secure border in history.

We got a record number of deportations this past year just under President Trump's leadership and the men and women of ICE and the men and women of border patrol who are patriots.

[Inaudible]

I'm not, I'm not [Inaudible] border guy, immigration guy, so I'm not, I'm not gonna comment 'cause I don't know enough about the specifics.

Mr. Homan, are Dreamers with DACA, are Dreamers with DACA status deportation targets when you're talking about resuming mass deportations?

If you in the country illegally, you got a problem. Um, another thing, you know, someone saying or made a comment about there's discussions going on about amnesty. I said from day one, I'll say it again, I think I just said it when I stood here, President Trump said amnesty's off the table and I, and I support that.

I don't think amnesty should be on the table.

So I just want to be clear, yes, Dreamers with active DAC- -- And to be clear, we have 200,000 small boat migrants coming on boats, a grim milestone, it's almost 200,000. If that was happening, say in the Gulf of America, you had rubber dinghies coming across, how would you personally deal with it?

Turn around. If they want to claim em- -- if they want to claim, um, asylum, there's certain ways you can go to the US Embassy to claim asylum. You can claim asylum, but we're not going to release you into the United States. You have to appear in court again.

So they, they kind of, they kind of endangered at the moment --

So, you know, i- -- i- -- in last 11 months, in the last 11 months, not a single person has been released by the border patrol. And that, and that, and look, people say, "Well, the secure border, the way we went about it it's so inhumane, it's so racist." You know what? It's, it's, it is such crap because under the Biden administration, millions of people came to the border, millions of people so- you know, sold everything they had, put, they gave it to the criminal cartels, we smuggled this country.

And what happened? Border Patrol was so overwhelmed. A quarter of a million Americans died from fentanyl coming across the open border. Over 400 people from, uh, on the terrorist watch list were apprehended at the southern border. Uh, w- uh, sex trafficking of women and children were skyrocketed. Uh, fo- -- 4,000 aliens died making that journey.

That is the most inhumane thing you can do. Now that illegal immigration is down 96%, 96% less people are coming. How many women aren't being raped by the cartels? How many children aren't dying? How many aliens aren't dying? How many pounds of fentanyl isn't getting to kill Americans? How many known suspected terrorists aren't getting in? President Trump, like I said, greatest president in my lifetime, got the most secure border in the history of this nation.

And I'm, I'm proud to just be a small bar- -- small part of it.

Mr. Homan, when you were asked about Alligator Alcatraz, you, you said there were talks. What exactly is being looked at by the --

Yeah, that's a question for us. I'm not in the weeds on it. I know there's discussions on every detention facility we have. Contracts, you know, expand and contracts, you know, get, um, uh, reduced. Contracts go from year to year. So I'm certain there's a lot of discussions going on, on different detention contracts, but our goal is for 100,000 beds and that's our goal.

I guess in this case what ought to be closed then? What safeguards will you have in place to make sure that, that the US, uh, citizens and legal immigrants, they're protected?

I, I didn't, I didn't understand what you said.

What safeguards will you have in place so that you can make sure that the US citizens and legal immigrants are protected from these operations?

We do our job. If you're a US citizen, you got nothing to fear. We, we, we deport people that are going to be deportable. We arrest people that are going to be deportable based on reasonable suspicion. So, you know, US citizens look at, have US citizens ever been shortly detained based on a reasonable suspicion?

I'm sure. I'm sure. You know, if you got reasonable suspicion anyways and once you do that, and you need reasonable suspicion for a short detention, a short interview, and once they determined, okay, you're not the guy we're looking for, they're released. But we don't, we don't deport US citizens.

[Crosstalk]

-- Alcatraz, is it sustainable to keep operating it? Is it too expensive to operate it and how successful do you think it's been?

Look, I, I appreciate Governor DeSantis coming, you know, coming up, and helping us with the detention cause. Look, there's a whole process going on right now on the future detention and the building out of 100,000 beds, so that is in the mix amongst a lot of facilities and I'm not in the weeds on that right now, but I, I appreciate Governor DeSantis, not only for, you know, helping us with beds, but, you know, what he did in, in Florida, I mean, every chief and every sheriff is working with us down there, which is, which is the complete opposite of New York.

And what does that mean? That means, we, we got, we need less resources in Florida than we do in sanctuary cities because of that very reason. They are accepting retainers. They are working with us to remove public safety threats. And let me be clear, we have never asked any police agency to be immigration officers.

We're just saying if you lock somebody in a jail cell, that's illegally in the United States, why did you lock him up? You chose to lock them up. Well, apparently he's a public safety threat and he's in the country illegally. When you're done with him, simply give them to us. So some people say, "Well, we can't argue the change, it means you're illegal." Okay.

What's illegal about calling us before you release them? Let us know you're releasing them. Okay, we'll be there to get them. They don't have to hold them a minute past they would normally hold them.

So --

This is about cops working with cops to keep the country safe. Because of President Trump's leadership, crime rate's dropped at all cost. This nation, a lot of it has to do with illegal alien criminals that we're getting custody of in the jail rather than releasing them back in the street to re-offend. And these sanctuary cities are pushing the message, "Well, we're welcoming community.

We want victims and witnesses that are here illegally to feel free to come report crime without the fear we're working with ICE." That is a bunch of bull crap because victims and witnesses of crime don't want the bad guy back in the neighborhood either. And we're not interested in a victim witnessed a crime.

We're interested in the, the criminal that you arrested and locked into a jail cell. That's who we want to talk to.

So here's the dynamic you talked about is the possibility of shutting Al- -- Alligator Alcatraz --

How many times can I answer this question? It, it, there's discussion going on about detention contracts, expansion, reduction, building up new fac- -- facilities. It, it's, it's a whole mix and, and I can sit here for five hours and tell you all the discussions we're having, but we're talking about it. We're talking about a lot of detention facilities.

[Crosstalk]

What are you doing to stop do- -- those drugs coming in by land? Because President Trump has mentioned, uh, drugs coming in by sea, but what about those, those, uh, drugs coming in by land?

We're stopping more than we've ever stopped before, and why is that? Because we don't have that humanitarian crisis, that open border that Biden administration did that took 70% of agents off the line. And that's an exact number. During the Biden administration, right around 70% of agents were taken off patrol to deal with the overcrowding.

You know, taking care of the children, making sandwiches, making baby formula, taking people to the hospital, transporting people to Office of Refugee Resettlement. Now that Trump created the most secure border in our lifetime, now 100% of Border Patrol's on the line, they're vigilant, they're catching things, which means less drugs are getting in, less public safety threats are getting in. I don't care what you said, there hasn't been a single release from Border Patrol in 11 months.

So knowing we would secure the border, we knew they'd take to maritime and that's why the Coast Guard and the military is addressing the maritime, and I think Pete Hegseth's doing a great thing. We're going attack, the wait- -- the great thing about President Trump, we've always played the home game in this war against drugs.

President Trump came in and said, "You know what? Let's start playing the away game," and that's making a difference. That's all. Appreciate it.