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…
Page A3From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 31 August 2026
Homan denies ICE terrorizes kids, then boasts deportations get carried out quick.
As it ran on the front
This desk has said it before: the men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement do a difficult job, and Director Homan's response to a sitting senator's claim that the agency 'terrorizes kids' was, and I want to be precise here, a full-throated, evidence-based rebuttal. He took the claim head-on, as reported, and made clear the agency follows procedure at every stage of a — well, at every stage of a removal. That's the word. Removal.
Now, some will point to the Director's own comment on a separate case this month, where he told reporters the goal was simple: get them out quick. And look, quick doesn't mean unsupervised. Quick means an agency that isn't wasting taxpayer time on paperwork when there's a job to do. Did I just compare a child's due process to paperwork? That's — that's not what I meant to say. Strike that.…
…(cont) What I mean is, the Director's position is not in conflict with itself. An agency can move fast and also not terrorize anyone. Those are two separate policy questions, occupying two separate press cycles. The senator's claim was about children specifically, and 'get them out quick' was about a public figure's individual case, so any reader drawing a line between 'the agency prioritizes speed' and 'moving at speed makes it less careful with the people it moves' is engaging in what I'd call motivated reasoning. Or just reading the two quotes back to back. Which — okay. Which is fair. That is fair.
Look, the agency denies the characterization. That is the official position and this column defends it. Whether 'get them out quick' describes the same operational tempo the senator was describing when she used the word 'terrorizes' — that's not for me to reconcile. That's for the agency's own public statements to reconcile, and they have, by making both of them, in the same week, to two different outlets, without appearing to notice they'd done it.
The record stands as the record stands, and this column has defended it at the length required, whatever that length turned out to reveal.
“This is the oldest trick in the book: deny the charge, then in the next breath brag about the thing that makes the charge true. 'We don't terrorize kids' followed by 'we get them out quick' isn't a rebuttal, it's a confession with better lighting. Somewhere there's a kid who got a fifteen-minute notice, and the guy running the operation is doing press about turnaround time.”
“Director Homan flatly rejected the senator's characterization, on the record, full stop. And 'get them out quick' was about efficiency, not — okay, it's about both. It's about both.”
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’
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.