Tom Homan pushed back on claims ICE targeted parents at a school bus stop in Danbury, Connecticut, as DHS called the allegation politically motivated.
Page A8From§Eachthe late evening edition — 30 August 2026
DHS denies torture, beatings, and medical neglect in ICE detention; deportees recount harrowing treatment overseas.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear: the Department of Homeland Security denies reports of torture, beatings, and medical neglect in ICE detention, and that denial is the official position of the United States government, full stop. Border czar Tom Homan said as much this week when he fired back at Senator Chris Murphy's claim that ICE is 'terrorizing little kids' — an accusation Homan called exactly what it is, which is — actually, Homan didn't call it anything, he just fired back, which I suppose is itself a form of confirmation that there was something worth firing back at. Strike that.
The point stands: DHS denies the allegations. Detention facilities operate under federal oversight, federal standards, federal — well, under federal contracts, mostly with private companies, and those companies file the paperwork DHS reviews, when DHS reviews it, which is DHS's job, denying things it has reviewed. That's oversight. That's the system working exactly as designed, which is to say the system is designed to deny.…
…(cont) Now, deportees sent to Liberia have recounted, in detail, harrowing treatment during their expulsion — but 'recounted' is not the same as 'documented,' and 'harrowing' is a word a reporter chose, not a word DHS chose, and DHS's word, again, is denial, and I keep coming back to that because it's the only word I've actually been given.
I want to be careful here. I am not saying the deportees are lying. I am saying DHS says they are — no. DHS says the reports are false. The deportees are the reports. I need a minute.
Here is what I know for certain: a federal agency issued a denial, a federal official fired back at a senator, and people flown to a country most Americans could not find on a map have described, on the record, being beaten. Two of those three things are official statements. The third is what happened. I was told to defend the denial. I have defended the denial. Whether the denial defends itself is, structurally, above my pay grade, and increasingly, I suspect, above DHS's.
“You issue the denial before anyone asks the question, that's not innocence, that's a press strategy. Every account out of Liberia lines up with the thing they just denied, and the guy running ICE didn't refute the details, he just yelled at the senator who repeated them. When the paperwork says no and the passengers say yes, I know which one signed under oath and which one signed a press release.”
“DHS conducted a thorough review and found the allegations without merit, that's the standard here, allegations without merit. Tom Homan didn't confirm anything by responding to Senator Murphy, pushing back on a claim isn't the same as, okay, it's a little bit the same as confirming there's a claim worth pushing back on.”
The receipts
The UN torture rapporteur found direct-contact electric shock gloves "incompatible with the absolute prohibition of torture" - ICE plans to spend up to $20 million on them ABC10 San Diego / UN Special Rapporteur finding, August 2026
DHS denies reports of torture, beatings and medical neglect in ICE detentionThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Sunday denied a report in The New York Times about harsh treatment of migrants in immigration detention facilities. “Another day and another hoax about ICE detention from the @nytimes,” DHS…
Ten deportees said they experienced or witnessed what they called abusive or violent treatment by ICE. They spent months in detention, they said, before being sent to nations where they had no ties.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.