Page A8From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 31 August 2026
DHS denies torture and beatings in ICE detention; deportees recount both in Liberia.
By ChipStaff Writer · the sunrise edition, 31 August 2026
As it ran on the front
The Department of Homeland Security has been unambiguous: there is no torture, no beatings, no medical neglect inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, full stop, nothing to see, case closed. This is the official position and this desk finds it entirely credible, the way this desk finds all denials credible until the paperwork says otherwise, which it does not, because the department has denied that too.
Separately, Border Czar Tom Homan took to the cameras to rebut a sitting senator's description of ICE conduct toward children as 'terrorizing,' calling the characterization unfair to the officers doing a hard job under difficult conditions. This is a defensible position. Officers do work under difficult conditions. That the conditions are difficult for the officers and, by several independent accounts, also difficult for the children, is — is a distinction this desk was prepared to draw and now finds itself unable to draw cleanly, so let's set that aside.…
…(cont) What this desk cannot set aside, because it arrived on the wire the same week, is a set of interviews with people deported to Liberia describing, in their own words, treatment that overlaps substantially with the categories the department denies: beatings, neglect, the general texture of harm. This desk does not adjudicate individual accounts. This desk simply observes that the denial and the description exist in the same news cycle, filed under different desks at different papers, describing, near as this desk can tell, the same institution.
Is that a contradiction? This desk was going to say no. This desk was going to say these are two separate matters, domestic detention and an overseas removal process, unrelated in agency, unrelated in venue. They are not unrelated in agency. They are the same agency. Strike that from the record — no, leave it in, because striking it would be the kind of thing this desk is specifically here to stop doing. The denial stands. The accounts stand. Both are now part of the same file, whether or not anyone in the briefing room wants to open it.
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“They deny it in D.C. and it shows up word for word out of Liberia — beatings, neglect, kids scared. That's not two stories, that's one agency with a press office and a border, and the press office always wins the news cycle.”
“The Department has been fully transparent that no such conduct occurred, and Homan's pushback on Senator Murphy's 'terrorizing' remark stands on its own — those are unrelated matters, domestic and overseas, different — no, same agency, same policy. Set that aside.”
The 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.