Page A3From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 31 August 2026
Look, nobody serious is saying ICE is out here terrorizing children. That's advocacy language, that's Senate press-release language, and Director Homan addressed it directly, on the record, no dodging. He said the agency does not target kids. That's the position. That has always been the position, going back as far as this reporter can — as far as I can recall being told to say. The 'get them out quick' line is about efficiency, about not letting cases sit in backlogs that critics love pointing to as proof of some ongoing 'crisis.' We're just moving faster. Faster is compassionate, if you think it through — less time in custody, less waiting, less— actually, no, the quote wasn't about custody time at all, it was about a specific removal, a single case. Forget I said that. The point stands: kids are not the target; people flagged for removal are the target, and when someone's flagged, the instruction from leadership is to move. That's not cruelty. That's process. Anybody trying to stitch a denial about children into the same paragraph as a separate quote about a separate deportation is doing what critics always do, which is manufacture a storyline out of two news cycles that don't belong together. One is a policy defense. One is a single case, a guy who — wait, why does everyone keep acting like one removal is representative of a pattern? It's one case. It's not evidence of anything about how families move through the system, and I will stand by that completely, even though — even though I suppose the actual phrase used was 'them,' plural, not 'him.' Fine. Setting that aside. The agency's position is that every removal follows established procedure, every claim involving a minor gets reviewed, and if outlets want to allege otherwise they're welcome to file the appropriate request instead of running a headline off two quotes stitched together from the same week. That's the statement. That's the whole statement, and this reporter is required to read it exactly as written, which he has now done, mostly.
“Homan says ICE isn't terrorizing kids in one sentence and orders 'get them out quick' in the next — that's not a contradiction, that's the operating manual. The 'quick' part is for us, so nobody has time to ask what happens to the ones left behind.”
“The agency's line is that kids were never the target — efficiency was. 'Get them out quick' is about clearing case backlogs, not about — well, it does technically apply to removals of people who have kids. The record stands as stated.”
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.