Page A6From§Eachthe midnight edition — 31 August 2026
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what Tom Homan actually said, because the coverage has, frankly, gotten ahead of itself. When a sitting United States senator stood up and claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement terrorizes children, the acting director did what any responsible law enforcement leader does: he took the claim head-on and corrected the record. ICE does not terrorize children. ICE removes individuals who — and I want to be precise here — who are in this country without legal status, some of whom happen to be the parents of children, which is a completely different — actually, no, that's not a distinction, that's the same thing, that is in fact the thing the senator was describing.
Moving on. Separately, and I want to stress this is unrelated, Director Homan was asked about the deportation of a well-known conservative commentator and offered a piece of operational philosophy this desk finds refreshingly candid: get them out quick. That is a statement about efficiency. It is not — I need to be honest, it is exactly a statement about efficiency applied to human beings being physically removed from their homes on a timeline chosen by the government, which is, again, the thing the senator was describing.…
…(cont) The administration's position is that these are two separate stories: a mischaracterization rebutted on one hand, a deportation philosophy stated proudly on the other. Read separately, they are perfectly defensible. Read in the order they happened — deny it, then say it — they are the same sentence.
I'm told that's not how I'm supposed to characterize it. Fine. The official position of this administration is that removing children's parents quickly is efficient, that calling it terror is inaccurate, and that the correct word is speed, and I will be saying that with a straight face for as long as I am asked to, which today is apparently forever.
What I will not do is pretend the two statements arrived in the wrong order for a reason. They arrived in the order they arrived in. The senator said terror. The director said not terror. Then, asked about the next case, the director said quick. Nobody made him say it in that sequence. He just did.
“Notice the order: first he tells you the word 'terrorize' is unfair, then in the very next breath he tells you the plan is speed over process — that's not a rebuttal, that's a confession wearing a rebuttal's clothes, and the kids in the sentence don't get a vote either way.”
“The acting director was simply correcting a mischaracterization from a sitting senator — ICE enforces the law, it doesn't terrorize anyone, and separately, unrelated, he also said get them out quick, which is just a statement about efficient processing, not — well, it's about the same people, but the word choice matters.”
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
Tom Homan Takes Dem Senator’s Claim That ICE Terrorizes Kids Head-On‘ICE is not in the business of terrorizing children’
Editor's note: This story was updated to accurately reflect former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's title. White House border czar Tom Homan on Sunday said federal immigration enforcement authorities "get them out quick" after officials…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.