Homan Expects ICE Arrests, Deportations to Reach Record Highs

White House border czar Tom Homan expects Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests next year to surpass current record figures.

Homan told The Epoch Times that hiring a couple thousand more agents would allow for more arrests. They are currently in training, he said. This comes as the Trump administration looks to increase its deportation efforts.

ICE arrested more illegal immigrants last month than at any time in the agency’s history, according to Homan, as the agency arrested 50,925 illegal immigrants. He also said that ICE broke records in June and July. ICE arrested 43,900 and 50,208 illegal immigrants, respectively.

September’s statistics, which have yet to be released, mark the most deportations in a single month, according to Homan.

“I expect bigger numbers next year,” he told Epoch Times senior editor Jan Jekielek in an interview on “American Thought Leaders” airing Sept. 26.

Homan said that ICE has been breaking arrest records despite the agency having more than 100 nationwide injunctions filed by judges he said don’t want ICE to detain and deport people. There are more than 87,000 cases where a judge has told ICE it cannot detain certain people, according to the border czar. These people, in turn, get released, he said.

Democrats have criticized the Trump administration for conducting mass arrests and accused ICE of targeting illegal immigrants with no criminal record. Critics have also panned the administration for immigration enforcement tactics, especially in light of two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year by immigration enforcement agents.

“Instead of targeting criminals, ICE has pounced on parents in the school pickup lane, arrested people at daycare centers and in churches, thrown tear gas outside elementary schools and under cars with children seated inside, smashed the windows of cars and dragged the passengers out, arrested students for writing op-eds, and held U.S. citizens against their will in immigration detention without bothering for days or weeks to verify their citizenship status,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said at a congressional hearing earlier this month.

Starting in February, the Department of Homeland Security was partially shut down for 76 days as Democrats declined to fund the agency without significant reforms, such as immigration agents wearing body cameras. On April 30, President Donald Trump signed legislation ending the shutdown and funding ICE and Border Patrol through a party-line bill.

“This data is clear: Mass deportation and incarceration of immigrants do not make our communities safer,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on May 12, in response to a report released by House Judiciary Committee Democrats that states mass deportations have interfered with criminal prosecutions.

In the interview with Jekielek, Homan predicted the Trump administration will break the record for deportations set by former President Barack Obama, which was 409,000 removals in a single fiscal year between Oct. 1, 2011 and Sept. 30, 2012.

The second Trump administration has deported more than 605,000 illegal immigrants in total, according to the White House.

Despite the record number of ICE arrests, deportations may not have increased, according to The Deportation Data Project at the University of California–Berkeley. Most of those being arrested by ICE recently do not have a deportation order, leading to fewer removals, researchers said.

In a statement, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said that the Deportation Data Project “relies on information releases that have not been reviewed, audited or given context.” DHS and ICE have not verified the accuracy, methodology, or the analysis of the project and its results, the spokesperson said.

Reuters contributed to this report.