CSPAN - Tom Homan Talks to Reporters
Aired: 2025-08-14
Duration: 09:57


=== President Trump Deploys National Guard (09:40) ===

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[00:01:05]  White House Borders are Tom Homan spoke to reporters about President Trump's decision to deploy National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. while talking to reporters outside of the White House.
[00:01:18]  Wednesday afternoon, come on.
[00:01:20]  You guys don't scare me.
[00:01:22]  Can you give us an update on the arrest made if you've seen so far?
[00:01:25]  I don't have the numbers.
[00:01:27]  I've been in the skiff for the last couple hours.
[00:01:29]  I've got no access to electronic devices.
[00:01:31]  I know they're making arrests.
[00:01:33]  Like I said this morning, it's just not the number of arrests they're making.
[00:01:36]  It's the deterrence effect.
[00:01:38]  The bad guy knows we're tenfold out in the street.
[00:01:42]  Federal agency is working side by side with the Metropolitan Police.
[00:01:46]  So the bad guys, based on my four years of experience, a lot of them are hiding.
[00:01:50]  They're not coming out committing crimes.
[00:01:51]  So not only are we arresting people and locking them up, we're preventing people from hitting the streets and committing crimes.
[00:01:56]  They know we're serious about making D.C. safe again.
[00:02:00]  President Trump has made a commitment to the citizens of D.C. to make this city safe again, and he's doing it.
[00:02:08]  He's doing it one arrest at a time.
[00:02:10]  Do you have a response to the judge asking ICE facilities in New York to be improved?
[00:02:17]  You guys ought to go look at an ICE facility.
[00:02:20]  Go look at them.
[00:02:21]  I'll compare, if it's an ICE facility that ICE owns, I'll compare our detention standards to any county, jail, or state prison in the country.
[00:02:30]  And I mean that.
[00:02:33]  Anybody can go to ICE.gov, look at the detention standards.
[00:02:37]  Matter of fact, a lot of people may be a little upset we're spending this much money on detention standards.
[00:02:41]  When I was the ICE director, we had county sheriffs and our contracts with them because they could not afford those detention standards.
[00:02:50]  And they said, if I can't give these detention standards to U.S. citizens, why am I going to pay all this money to give detention standards to somebody that's not even supposed to be here?
[00:02:58]  I literally had sheriffs walk away from agreements.
[00:03:01]  So I'll compare an ICE facility to any facility in this country, any state, any county, prison in the nation.
[00:03:07]  I'll compare them side by side.
[00:03:08]  How do you have any more detailed numbers on what it could look like to renovate Alcatraz?
[00:03:14]  You mean San Francisco Alcatraz?
[00:03:16]  Right.
[00:03:17]  I'm not in the loop on that.
[00:03:18]  I leave it up to, I know Pam Bonnie's working on that.
[00:03:21]  And I leave it up to the DHS and DOJ because they're working on that.
[00:03:26]  I'm not in the loop on that.
[00:03:27]  Okay, and the Speedway Slammer, do you have an update on that, when that will be up and running, any kind of timeline there?
[00:03:33]  No, it should be pretty soon.
[00:03:34]  I think it's going to be 1,000 beds.
[00:03:38]  And I appreciate the governor stepping up and helping us on that.
[00:03:43]  I don't particularly like the names.
[00:03:45]  I mean, the men, women, and ICE, what they're doing every day out there is dangerous, is serious.
[00:03:52]  They're doing it with dignity, honor, and respect.
[00:03:56]  And I think sometimes those names take away from that.
[00:03:58]  I think the name is mocking what ICIS at work doing.
[00:04:02]  I'm just saying I don't particularly like the names.
[00:04:04]  That's just me.
[00:04:06]  Because I don't want anything to take away from the dangerous, important work ICE is doing.
[00:04:12]  They're trying to do it with dignity, honor, and respect.
[00:04:15]  And I don't want anything to take away from that.
[00:04:16]  And sometimes the names, people get caught up on the names and they think it becomes a joke.
[00:04:21]  I don't think what we're doing is a joke.
[00:04:23]  It's serious, dangerous stuff, as we can tell from the over 1,000% increase in ICE attacks.
[00:04:29]  And just on the floor, I settlement: does the Trump administration believe it's still operational after the cost of the 1B deposit of the 1B Jews within the?
[00:04:37]  Well, look, I'm not, that's a question of a DOJ.
[00:04:41]  They're litigating by the Florida Settlement Agreement by Dolly G, it was the worst immigration decision in the history of this nation.
[00:04:49]  Because I said if they found that way where accompanied children are treated like unaccompanied children and they can only hold them for 20 days, I said at the time if they did that, you would see a surge of family units across this border like never seen before.
[00:05:06]  If they knew they're not going to be held long enough to see a judge.
[00:05:10]  And what happened?
[00:05:11]  I was called a fearmonger by the other side, but I was exactly right.
[00:05:14]  Hundreds of thousands of families rushed across the border because they knew they would be released before they saw a judge.
[00:05:20]  They knew 90% of people who claim asylum at the border end up with an order removal.
[00:05:25]  They knew that.
[00:05:26]  And under President Obama, in the beginning, under President Obama, when the family units came across, we detained them at the first residential center we created.
[00:05:35]  We held him.
[00:05:35]  It took about 40 days to see a judge.
[00:05:37]  And what happened?
[00:05:38]  90% lost their case.
[00:05:39]  We put him on airplane and sent him home.
[00:05:41]  The border numbers dropped significantly.
[00:05:44]  Then the Ninth Circuit decided this can only hold them for 20 days.
[00:05:48]  And what I said would happen, happened.
[00:05:50]  The numbers went up.
[00:05:51]  They exploded.
[00:05:52]  They had the significant profit in illegal immigrants coming crossing the border.
[00:05:56]  But what about those deportations tell people how successful has to be charged with?
[00:06:01]  I looked at the numbers the other day.
[00:06:02]  Ever since President Trump's been in the overall office, we got over 300,000 repatriations, close to 320,000.
[00:06:08]  If you look at the short time he's been in office, that's historic in itself.
[00:06:13]  I mean, we tracked things by fiscal year.
[00:06:18]  And of course, Biden administration almost four months.
[00:06:21]  So those four months weren't hurt because they weren't doing SWAT, right?
[00:06:24]  So I think that at the time President Trump's been in office, he's kept his promise to American people.
[00:06:28]  We're removing people at record numbers.
[00:06:30]  We're taking public safety threats, national security threats off the streets at record numbers.
[00:06:35]  What are the factors do you attribute to the sharp profit that need to be with what?
[00:06:40]  What other factors do you attribute to the sharp profit?
[00:06:42]  We got the most secure border in the history of the nation today because of President Trump.
[00:06:46]  No one does it better.
[00:06:47]  I worked for six presidents.
[00:06:49]  No one can hold a candle to this president.
[00:06:51]  Trump 45, we had the most secure border in the history of this nation.
[00:06:54]  Biden came in and unsecured it on purpose.
[00:06:57]  The first president in the history of this nation to unsecure a border on purpose.
[00:07:02]  Now President Trump comes back, Trump 47.
[00:07:04]  We even beat Trump 45.
[00:07:07]  We have the most secure border in the history of the nation.
[00:07:09]  It has to do with the president's great decisions on executive orders, remaining in Mexico through a safe country agreements, ending catch release was huge.
[00:07:17]  And on top of that, on top of the great work of the men and women of the Border Patrol, what ICE is doing is having a deterrent effect too.
[00:07:24]  They're showing there's over a thousand teams on the streets every day looking for people in this country entering legally, especially public safety threats and national security threats.
[00:07:31]  We're showing the whole world we're going to force immigration laws in this country.
[00:07:34]  That has a strong deterrent effect.
[00:07:36]  People know you can't come to the border and expect to be released because you're not going to be released.
[00:07:40]  We haven't released anybody in months.
[00:07:42]  And if somehow you get by the Border Patrol and we find you, you're going home.
[00:07:46]  I see President Trump deploying the National Guard here.
[00:07:49]  Do you think that step was incredibly necessary?
[00:07:51]  I mean, it's quite the escalation.
[00:07:53]  Crime is, of course, a concern for the National Guard.
[00:07:56]  You live in D.C.?
[00:07:57]  I didn't work here at the moment.
[00:07:58]  Okay, would you walk around D.C. at night?
[00:08:01]  I do, but I do think it could be safer.
[00:08:03]  I think there are.
[00:08:03]  It could be safer.
[00:08:04]  Look.
[00:08:04]  Look, I think President Trump made the right decision, just like they made the right decision in Los Angeles.
[00:08:09]  I was in Los Angeles with the National Guard.
[00:08:11]  Control got, you know, undertaken very, very quickly.
[00:08:16]  D.C. is a dangerous place.
[00:08:17]  I don't go the streets at night without a gun.
[00:08:22]  And, you know, it's dangerous.
[00:08:25]  I mean, we see the crime in D.C. You got the Democrats saying the crime isn't that bad.
[00:08:30]  Come on, you walk through the streets of D.C.
[00:08:32]  It's not safe to walk the streets at night here.
[00:08:35]  And President Trump, this is the capital of the greatest country in the world.
[00:08:41]  We should have a capital that's safe for tourists, for citizens.
[00:08:44]  Anybody comes to the greatest nation on earth, our capital should be a showpiece.
[00:08:48]  And President Trump is going to make sure not only is it safe, it's a showpiece for the whole world.
[00:08:52]  And that's the right thing to do for the greatest nation on earth.
[00:08:55]  Is it enough for that?
[00:08:55]  Or do you think it would be a good idea?
[00:08:57]  President Trump doesn't have a limitation on his authority to make this country safe again.
[00:09:01]  There's no limitation on that.
[00:09:03]  Thank you, Mr. Hellman.
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