Tom Homan pushed back hard against calls to abolish ICE, arguing the agency has been vital in rescuing trafficked children, seizing fentanyl, and removing dangerous criminals, and he urged that the data backs up those claims.
Speaking on Fox News’ One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, Tom Homan challenged Democrats who want to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying those critics ignore laws they helped write. He emphasized that ICE has a long history of enforcing federal immigration statutes and that recent activity shows a surge in arrests and removals. Homan framed the debate around public safety, criminal arrests, and the agency’s role in tackling drug and human trafficking. His comments aimed to recenter the conversation on results rather than rhetoric.
Mr. Homan had those numbers.
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Mr. Homan said:
Look, they say they want to abolish ICE, even members of Congress are, “let’s abolish ICE.” But what they are failing to tell the people is, we’re enforcing the laws that they wrote. That they enacted. We’re not not making this up. We’re doing the same job we did under any other president, except for the last four years under Joe Biden, ICE wasn’t allowed to enforce the law. If they look at the results of what ICE has done, right, record numbers of arrests and deportations. In June ICE arrested more illegal aliens than at any time in the history of the agency. July? We blew June out of the water. August is going to be the same thing.
And people need to remember, just short of 70 percent of everybody we arrest, is a criminal. So we’re removing hundreds of thousands of criminals from their neighborhoods, making those neighborhoods safe again. But they can have an (unclear) to abolish ICE, OK? ICE just found 151,000 missing children that were smuggled during the Biden administration, they lost track of them. Some of these children were victims of sex trafficking, some were forced into labor. We rescued those children, 151,000. So you want to abolish an agency that found 151,000 children.
You want to abolish an agency that seized enough fentanyl to kill every American three times over again. You want to abolish an agency that is attacking sex trafficking women and children across that border. It just don’t (sic) make sense. Again, we’re making the country safe again, the numbers prove it. Simply look at the data.
Homan pointed to big-picture metrics: large seizures of illegal narcotics, a spike in arrests, and an uptick in rescues related to human trafficking at the border. He framed these outcomes as the direct consequence of enforcing existing immigration laws, arguing that enforcement brings results that protect communities. The claim that nearly 70 percent of arrests are of people with criminal records was used to underline the argument that ICE focuses on threats to public safety. For Homan, the point is straightforward: removing dangerous actors makes neighborhoods safer.
He also contrasted current enforcement activity with prior periods, asserting that ICE was less active over the last four years under the Biden administration. Homan portrayed the agency’s recent surge in operations as a return to rigorous law enforcement rather than a new policy. That framing allows supporters to argue this is simply a restoration of prior practice under consistent statutes. It shifts responsibility to lawmakers who passed the laws, suggesting the agency is executing congressional intent.
The broadcast featured claims about large-scale rescues, including the assertion that ICE located 151,000 missing children who were smuggled during the Biden years. Homan described some of those children as victims of sex trafficking and forced labor and presented the rescues as evidence of ICE’s humanitarian impact. He also cited fentanyl seizures as an existential public health success, saying ICE had confiscated amounts capable of staggering levels of harm. Those examples were used to argue that abolishing the agency would have serious, tangible consequences.
Critics of ICE have argued the agency’s methods and policies need reform, but Homan and his allies view abolition as a dangerous overreach that would remove a primary federal tool for disrupting traffickers and drug networks. From this perspective, enforcing immigration laws is inseparable from combating transnational crime and protecting children. The debate, then, becomes about prioritizing enforcement and public safety versus pursuing structural change at the agency level. For Republicans backing Homan’s view, enforcement is nonnegotiable.
Beyond the immediate rhetoric, Homan urged audiences to examine the data rather than political slogans. He maintained that arrest and seizure statistics tell a consistent story: active enforcement reduces criminal activity tied to illegal border crossings. That appeal to empirical evidence is meant to ground the argument in measurable outcomes, not partisan emotion. In Homan’s telling, ICE’s work has restored safety to communities and interrupted networks preying on vulnerable people.
The exchange on national television amplified a broader political conversation ahead of upcoming elections, where immigration and border security are likely to remain central issues. Homan’s remarks were designed to give Republicans a crisply framed message: enforcement saves lives, protects neighborhoods, and disrupts criminal enterprises. By keeping the focus on rescues, seizures, and arrests, he sought to make the case that abolishing ICE would carry real costs for public safety and national security.
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