Tom Homan gave a CBS News reporter a free immigration law tutorial on camera, and it took him about one sentence. The border czar was speaking with CBS immigration correspondent Camilo Montoya-Galvez when the reporter raised a statistic from Rep. Maria Salazar: 50% of ICE detainees don’t have an additional criminal charge or conviction.
Homan wasn’t impressed by the setup. “Are they in the country illegally?” he asked. The correspondent said yes. “Then they are deportable by federal law,” Homan replied. Class dismissed.
Montoya-Galvez pushed back anyway. “But so are millions of people, right?” Homan didn’t even blink. “Yeah. If you’re in the country illegally, you got a problem. You shouldn’t be here.” That’s the whole argument. That’s it. The CBS reporter had apparently hoped for something more complicated, and Homan refused to provide it.
The exchange, which spread quickly on social media, exposed a line of thinking that’s pretty common in certain newsrooms: the idea that an illegal immigrant needs to rack up extra charges before deportation becomes fair. Being in the country in violation of federal law, apparently, isn’t enough of a reason by itself. Tom Homan ICE detainee exchange That logic would get laughed out of any courtroom in America, but it plays well on cable news.
Reaction on X was swift. “My goodness, we have elected some genuinely stupid people to Congress. Homan cut to the chase in one sentence,” wrote user Sally Gillies. Another user, responding to the reporter’s line about millions of people being deportable, put it simply: “Yes that’s the problem.” A third noted that if half of ICE detainees have an additional criminal charge, “surely that’s a very high rate.”
One user summed up the whole charade pretty well: “The reporter’s whole premise collapses on the first word: illegal. No extra charge is required to enforce immigration law. CBS knows that; they just want viewers confused enough to oppose deportations.” Another added, “Such a basic concept. It’s almost as if they’ve been directed to play dumb.”
Homan isn’t exactly known for dancing around a question, and this exchange was no exception. The law says being in the country illegally makes you deportable. It doesn’t say “deportable, unless you’ve kept a low profile” or “deportable, pending additional charges.” CBS tried to make a routine enforcement question sound like a civil rights crisis, and Homan answered with a shrug and a sentence. Drop a comment below and let us know what you thought of Homan’s response.
