Page T2From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 6 October 2026
As it ran on the front
That's just due diligence — you want the comparison before you accept the premise.
Give him that one and go to the record, since that's supposed to be where the standard lives. Four days earlier, the same border czar sat for the same network and was asked about Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman an ICE agent shot and killed in January. He didn't call it industry-leading. He called it tragic. The next day, asked again, he said he wished she were alive today. Empathy and "highest standards" can share a sentence — institutions regret an outcome while standing behind the process that produced it all the time. Except the process, that same week, got named in two federal lawsuits: Good's partner and her brother sued the agent who shot her, and sued further up into the administration, naming several top officials, alleging wrongful death.…
…(cont) Then it happened again, in Chicago. Marimar Martinez, shot five times by a Border Patrol agent last year, filed her own suit, arguing under the Federal Tort Claims Act that the government itself is liable for what she calls the agent's negligent acts. Two shootings. Two agents. Two live federal complaints, both naming the system Homan spent his CBS appearance describing as best in the business.
Homan wanted the old administration's death count before he'd answer for this one. Fair ask. He still hasn't supplied his own. The suits sitting in federal court right now exist to produce exactly that number, and twice this week, asked to defend the system, the man in charge of it reached for "tragic" instead.
“They call it the highest standard in the industry the same week two women are suing over bullets ICE agents put in them — one's dead, one's got five entry wounds. That's not a safety record, that's a press line doing triage before the depositions start. When the guy running the agency needs the last administration's body count to answer a question about his own agency's bodies, you already know he doesn't like the number he's sitting on.”
“Due diligence, that's all this is — you want the comparable numbers before some anchor browbeats you into agreeing you run the worst agency in government. Two lawsuits isn't a trend, people sue constantly, this is a litigious country, this is still — actually one of them is a dead woman and the other took five rounds, so "litigious" might not be the word I want there. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me.”
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
Border czar Tom Homan clashes with CBS interviewer over migrant deaths, asks for Biden-era dataBorder Czar Tom Homan challenged CBS over a "loaded question" about ICE detention deaths, arguing the agency has the highest standards in the industry.
A woman who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent while driving in Chicago last year has sued the Trump administration over the nonfatal incident. Marimar Martinez, 30, filed the lawsuit on Monday, arguing the federal government is liable for the agent’s “negligent acts” under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
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
Border czar Tom Homan clashes with CBS interviewer over ICE migrant deaths, asks for Biden-era dataBorder czar presses interviewer on whether he had Biden-era custody death statistics before defending ICE standards
· Homan asked about ICE killing of Renee Good as family files civil suits: "What happened was tragic" from the morgue, 1 Oct 2026
· White House border czar Tom Homan defends ICE arrests after Renee Good family lawsuits from the morgue, 1 Oct 2026
· Trump's border czar says he wishes "Renee Good was alive today" from the morgue, 2 Oct 2026
· Family of Renee Good sues ICE agent who shot her and top Trump officials from the morgue, 1 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.