The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is arresting 2,000 migrants per day, immigration czar Tom Homan told a press gaggle at the White House on Monday.
“We’re having about 2,000 pretty steady,” he told the reporters, who were focused on asking questions about their own narratives related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) body cameras and oversight.
Homan used the brief event to defend DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin as he and President Donald Trump zigzag between the GOP’s pro-deportation voters and the business sector’s demand for more migrant workers, consumers, and renters:
Me and Markwayne want to get along well. He cares about the mission. We serve different roles. ICE and CBP report to Markwayne. I help Stephen Miller. We develop strategies to send down to the programs for implementation. So, we’ve got different roles, but I think Markwayne is doing a good job.
Homan’s appearance on Monday was intended to push back criticism from pro-American activists and voters.
“There are people out there who want to attack this current administration” from the right, Homan said, adding:
They don’t think we’re doing enough. There was an X post this morning [which said] ICE was arresting 3,000 aliens a day last year. No, not once, not a single time do we arrest 3,000 [in a day], and now they say we’re arresting 2,000.
We’re having about 2,000 pretty steady. Like I said this weekend, I looked at the data. Arrests are up about 40 percent over the same time period we’ve been funded now. I’ve been upfront from the beginning. Numbers were down for a few months because the department was shut down … The numbers were down 12 to 16 percent, but now the numbers are trailing up 40 percent because we are fully funded …
I’m really tired of the false narratives going out there about what this administration is doing. The numbers are up. Last month, June, highest numbers of arrests in the history of the agency … I wish people do a little bit of research before they start attacking this administration. What we’re doing right now, our numbers higher than [they‘ve] ever been, and I’m sick and tired of people saying we’re not doing enough.
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Homan denounced the criticism, saying:
That’s an insult to every ICE agent that’s strapping up every day, working six and seven days a week to get this done. It’s an insult. These men and women are acting professionally. They’re out there making record numbers.
The establishment reporters did not ask Homan about gains for Americans from deportations and worksite enforcement, DHS deportation data, estimates of self-deportation numbers, investigations of white-collar migration fraud, or even business demands for migrant workers.
The arrest of 2,000 migrants per day is a massive improvement over prior presidents. But it only adds up to 730,000 migrants per year — less than 10 percent of the 8 million wage-cutting, rent-spiking migrants welcomed by President Joe Biden’s business-backed pro-migration border chief.
However, a broad front of pro-American, pro-deportation advocates want more deportations and are suing the Department of Homeland Security for the arrest data.
“The [official] numbers don’t add up,” said Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, which has sued the government for updated data. Howell, who helps to steer the Mass Deportation Coalition, told Breitbart News on July 8:
I’m very worried that the amnesty push is sincere and a credible threat. Recent history with [President Barack] Obama shows us that inflated deportation statistics will be used to look tough on enforcement, so the amnesty lobby can gain leverage in a deal with the basic premise being like “We deported it enough — now’s the time to deal with the legalization.”
I don’t want that to happen. I want it to be preempted, and to do that, I think we need to be honest about the deportation numbers, where they are … so you can have a legitimate policy conversation about how to handle deportation enforcement.
“There’s enough people out in the base who have lost trust in the numbers, and I want to keep them enthusiastic and on the same page about what the numbers are, so we can figure out where to go,” he told Breitbart News.
The issue is important for turnout in the pending elections, Howell said:
We know what the base voters want: They want mass deportation, and so let’s get the deportations rolling … We know it’s a winning issue. I mean, DHS agrees with us — they tweeted a post saying most Americans support it.
On Monday, DHS posted data showing that it deported 356,389 migrants since October 2025:
The “Gang of Eight” amnesty advocates in 2013 and 2014 inflated deportation numbers to help politicians justify their amnesty votes, Howell said:
During Obama, it was on record who supported the Gang of Eight and DACA … it’s the special interest lobbyists who you know rely on illegal labor, it’s the farm lobby, agriculture, it’s hospitality, it’s your restaurants, all the major industries that love cheap illegal labor, and their Chamber of Commerce allies
Look no further than the co-sponsors of the Dignity Act, look no further than the sponsors and co-sponsors of the Farm Work Modernization Act. It is not rocket science — that’s the blob of the Amnesty Lobby, which gets a huge assist rhetorically media allies, and we don’t want them to be able to take advantage of inflated numbers.
This weekend, business groups boasted to Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post that they have been allowed to meet with DHS officials to argue against immigraiton enforcement:
Earlier this month, DHS officials met at the agency’s Washington headquarters with the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major trade associations that depend on immigrant labor, according to several people with knowledge of the meeting, which has not been previously reported.
Last week, Homan said he is pushing for more worksite raids to arrest more migrants:
We need to fire up worksite-enforcement operations, because I know, not only can you arrest illegal aliens that cause a decrease in wages for the American worker, not only does it hurt legitimate businesses because they undercut their bids and it puts Americans out of work, but also because… they’re in the country illegally.
“We want to just push the special interest lobby out of the way,” Howell said. “People in power know that there is an even more powerful constituency that supports mass deportations.”
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