Border czar Tom Homan called on Democratic politicians to tone down their rhetoric against immigration officials earlier this week following the shooting of a Texas police officer outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center last weekend.
“The rhetoric against the men and women of ICE is skyrocketing, especially by members of Congress,” Homan told “America’s Newsroom” on Monday. “We have senators, we have congresspeople [who] compare ICE to the Nazis, compare ICE to racists, and it just continues. So the public thinks, well, if a member of Congress can attack ICE, why can’t we?”
The rhetoric “has to stop,” he warned, “or it’s a matter of time one of the ICE officers goes down or a criminal goes down. We’ve already seen an officer go down.”
The inflammatory rhetoric has come from Democratic lawmakers, not Republicans, reports have noted.
The officer was shot in the neck a week ago near the Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, authorities said.
The Department of Homeland Security reported that more than a dozen agitators slashed tires on federal vehicles and damaged security cameras at the ICE facility. This attack comes amid ongoing protests outside a DHS detention center in Portland, sparked by backlash against President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Homan stated that attacks targeting ICE officers and federal agents involved in immigration enforcement have increased by nearly 700% compared to the same period last year.
Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faced criticism from Republicans in June after likening federal immigration operations to the Gestapo, the notorious secret police of Nazi Germany.
Homan urged blue state politicians to exercise greater responsibility in their criticism of immigration officials, pointing out that these officers have families as well and are merely doing the jobs they were hired and trained to do.
“We’re talking about life and death here. These men and women of ICE, the men and women of border patrol, they’re mothers and fathers too. They don’t hang their heart on a hook when they go to work,” he said.
The border czar also told protesters that if they disagree with the country’s immigration laws, they should “go protest Congress.”
The attack on law enforcement came shortly after President Trump signed his $3.3 trillion “big, beautiful bill” into law on Friday. The legislation includes funding for 10,000 new ICE agents and allocates $46.5 billion for border wall construction, $45 billion to expand immigration detention capacity, $30 billion for ICE hiring and training, and $6 billion for border technology and surveillance.
Homan stated that the additional funding will enable immigration officials to operate more efficiently and “make America safer.”
“We have less than 5,000 deportation officers at ICE. We have over 20 million illegal aliens in this country,” he said, putting the challenge of mass removals in perspective.
