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 A5From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 31 August 2026
DHS denies torture and beatings in ICE detention; deportees to Liberia describe torture and beatings in ICE detention.
As it ran on the front
The Department of Homeland Security has been unfairly characterized this week, and this reporter — this columnist — wants to be precise about what the record actually shows. DHS denies reports of torture, beatings, and medical neglect in ICE detention. That is the department's position, stated plainly, and departments do not issue denials of things that — well, they issue denials of things that happened, that's actually the whole function of a denial, forget I said that.
What matters is process. Border czar Tom Homan has been clear that claims from a sitting senator that ICE is 'terrorizing little kids' are overstated, the kind of rhetoric that plays well on cable and poorly under oath. That's a fair point about rhetoric. It would be a fairer point if it didn't arrive the same week deportees sent to Liberia sat down with reporters and described, in their own words, the treatment they say they received during expulsion — harrowing is the word used, and I want to say that's their word, not a finding, except it's attached to specific people describing specific things, which is usually how findings start.…
…(cont) Look. The department's job is to deny until there's a finding, and there is no finding yet, that's the process, that's due process, that's — actually there isn't a hearing scheduled for this, is there. There's a denial and there are accounts and there isn't a court date connecting them, and I don't love saying that out loud but there it is.
This reporter would note that a denial is not evidence of anything except that a denial was issued. It is possible for a department to deny something and for deportees three thousand miles away to describe that same something happening to them, and for both of those facts to sit in the same news cycle without anyone in a position to reconcile them actually doing so. That's not a scandal. That's Tuesday. It should probably be a scandal. I'm going to leave it there.
“They deny the beatings the same week the guys who got beaten are describing it on the record — that's not a coincidence, that's a press release. A denial isn't a finding, it's just a department betting nobody checks the two stories against each other.”
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.