Border Czar Tom Homan isn’t messing around and wants to see ICE double the number of daily arrests following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
The historic funding will dramatically bolster President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, allowing the administration to complete the border wall, hire 10,000 new officers and double the capacity to detain illegal immigrants to 100,000 beds.
Homan on Monday said he’d like to see 7,000 illegal immigrants taken off the streets per day — more than double the 3,000-per-day quota announced in late May by White House adviser Stephen Miller. The Democrat whining is about to get louder.
“We talk about 12 million illegal aliens. We’ve been talking about 12 million for two decades,” Homan told reporters during a press briefing Monday outside the White House. “We know at least eight million were released in this country with Joe Biden. So, we’re well over 20 million. I’m being conservative. So, more boots on the ground means we arrest more bad people, means this country is safe.”
That figure would amount to 1.2 million arrests if agents hit their quota every day for the rest of the year, The New York Post reported. The law will “turbocharge” Trump’s deportation effort, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLauglin told The Post last week.
ICE posted a video clip on X with Director Todd M. Lyons explaining how the cash infusion from the bill will hire additional agents and support personnel, including attorneys, to expedite removals and provide faster due process for detainees.
Lyons said ICE has the highest detention standards of any other prison system in the country. The goal is to get deportees back to their home countries safely and humanely.
“ICE doesn’t detain punitively. We detain to remove people,” Lyons said on FOX’s “The Big Weekend Show.” “So, we don’t want to have people in custody. …They have the option to self-deport if they want, so they don’t have to stay in custody. But if they do remain in custody and they are ordered deported, we want to get them out of the country humanely and quickly. We don’t want to keep people detained because the costs are extremely high.”
To the ire of Democrats, Trump signed the nearly 900-page bill into law on July 4. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is set to receive $165 billion to beef up border security and immigration enforcement.
“This $165 billion in funding will help the Department of Homeland Security and our brave law enforcement further deliver on President Trump’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
According to a DHS news release, the highlights include:
- $46.5 billion to complete construction of the border wall.
- $14.4 billion for removal transportation.
- $12 billion in state reimbursements for states that fought against the Biden administration’s open border.
- $4.1 billion to hire additional CBP personnel, including 3,000 more customs officers and 3,000 new Border Patrol agents.
- $3.2 billion for new technology and $2.7 billion for new cutting-edge border surveillance.
- $855 million to expand Customs and Border Protection’s vehicle fleet.
- The law will also provide ICE with the funding to hire 10,000 new agents, which would allow the rate of deportations to reach as high as 1 million per year. ICE currently has 20,000 law enforcement and support personnel across 400 offices.
- The BBB provides ICE with enough detention capacity to maintain an average daily population of 100,000 illegal immigrants and secures 80,000 new ICE beds.
- The Big Beautiful Bill will also fully fund ICE’s 287(g) program, which partners with state and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officers.
- Under the law, ICE and Border Patrol agents will also receive a $10,000 bonus for the next four years.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers continue to demonize ICE agents and encourage violent left-wing “activism.” Congressman Pramila Jayapal is the latest to join other radical leftists who have called ICE agents terrorists and said it’s “inspiring” to see people use resistance tactics to obstruct agents from doing their jobs.
“It’s really disgusting that an elected official would go ahead and advocate for obstructing law enforcement, calling ICE agents and officers terrorists,” Lyons said on FOX’s “The Big Weekend Show.” “It’s really frustrating for us because we, daily, are out there arresting known suspected terrorists. We know what it’s like to go against terrorist organizations and cartels.”
Assaults on ICE agents have jumped 700% this year and organized groups are now ambushing ICE facilities and agents.
“She’s stoking the fire and stoking this flame that ICE is in the wrong, that we are out there terrorizing people, like she says, which is the furthest from the truth,” Lyons said. “The brave men and women of ICE are out there every day doing their job.”
In another post on X, Lyons added: “Inciting activists is not a game; there are very real consequences. I’m relieved that both these officers are expected to recover, but how much more dangerous rhetoric can we as a nation tolerate before it’s too late?”
Homan also told reporters Monday that ICE doesn’t plan to back down in sanctuary cities, “because we know that’s where the problem is” because they don’t honor ICE detainers and release criminals back into the community.
Homan concluded the press conference with a question related to concerns over Iranian nationals working with Mexican drug cartels right across the border. Read the transcript here.
“I can’t comment on that, but we’re well aware of it and we’re all over it,” he said.
