The border czar’s briefing room appearance comes as the Trump administration marks its 100th day in office this week, with Homan touting the administration’s progress on border security. He pointed to a significant drop in illegal border crossings, which have plunged since Trump took office to the lowest level in decades.
Homan said Monday that the administration has deported 139,000 migrants since Jan. 20 as Trump officials have struggled to ramp up removal numbers. This figure includes people deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard, who would have been encountered at or before they reached the border, according to a DHS official. The Trump administration’s monthly deportation numbers have lagged behind the Biden administration’s, according to data obtained by NBC News.
“Am I happy with the numbers? The numbers are good, especially if you look at the ICE numbers. The ICE arrests and removals are far beyond Biden,” Homan said. “But I read the media, ‘oh, deportations are behind the Biden administration.’ Well, why? Because they counted border removals.”
The Trump administration has been slow to release deportation numbers, instead highlighting arrest and detention statistics, which have increased since the Biden administration. Immigrants who were first arrested by Customs and Border Protection — arrests that often take place at the border — did account for most of the deportations this time last year under President Joe Biden.
It’s easier to deport people detained at the border than to arrest them throughout the country. Trump has been a victim of his own success, with low border crossings making it more difficult to quickly ramp up to the deportation numbers he promised on the campaign trail.
The president’s vow to quickly deport millions of undocumented immigrants has run up against other challenges, too. The White House is waiting on additional funding and resources from Congress, and the bogged down immigration courts have continued to be a roadblock to quickly removing people who are in the country illegally.
At the White House on Monday, immigrants’ mugshots lined the walkway along the White House’s north entrance commonly used by reporters. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt touted the president’s progress in cracking down on the border and said Trump would sign two immigration executive orders Monday: One designed to “unleash America’s law enforcement” and another on sanctuary cities, which will direct the attorney general and secretary of Homeland Security to publish “a list of state and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws.” She did not offer more details on the orders Trump will sign Monday afternoon.
Homan and Leavitt also faced several questions on the arrest of the Wisconsin judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities, with Leavitt saying that anyone who breaks the law or obstructs federal law enforcement “from doing their jobs” could also face prosecution.
Homan was also pressed on the U.S. citizen children who were removed alongside their mother earlier this month. He defended it as a “parental decision,” even as lawyers for the mother say she wasn’t given an option to leave them in the United States.
“We’re keeping families together. So when a parent says, ‘I want my 2-year-old baby to go with me,’ we made that happen,” Homan said. “They weren’t deported. We don’t deport U.S. citizens. The parents made that decision, not the United States government.”
