The following is the transcript of the interview with Tom Homan, Trump administration border czar, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Feb. 15, 2026.
ED O’KEEFE: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face The Nation.’ Margaret is off today. Washington is waking up to another funding standoff, and it’s unclear at this point when it could end, as congress is on recess for another week. So for more on the debate over immigration enforcement tactics, we’re joined by White House border czar Tom Homan. Mr. Homan, thank you so much for joining us.
TOM HOMAN: Thanks for having me.
ED O’KEEFE: I want to begin, of course, with negotiations over reopening the Department of Homeland Security. They center around some specific policy changes Democrats demand in how immigration agents conduct operations. Among other things, they’d like to require immigration agents to show identification, wear body cameras, take off their masks, stop racial profiling and seek judicial warrants to enter private property. Which, if any of those asks are- is the president, are you willing consider- or willing to consider adopting?
TOM HOMAN: Well, I’m not a part of those negotiations. That’s being as being done up on the hill between Senate and House and the White House. I’m not really part of those negotiations. But look, you know, they want to say, stop racial profiling. That’s just not occurring. I mean, ICE will detain, briefly detain and question, but question somebody based on reasonable suspicion. It has nothing to do with racial profiling. As far as the mask look, you know, I don’t like the masks either, but because threats against ICE officers, you know, are up over 1500% actual assaults and threats are up over 8000%. These men and women have to protect themselves. As far as identifying themselves, they all have placards identifying themselves as ICE, ERO, HSI, DEA, FBI, so they all have placards on them. So I’ll let the White House and members of Congress, you know, fight that out. But I think some of the asks are just- I think they’re unreasonable because there is no racial profiling. There is identifying marks, but masks, you know, why don’t they talk about maybe passing legislation to make it illegal to dox agents or something like that? But the masks right now are for officer safety reasons.
ED O’KEEFE: There are federal laws, of course, against injuring, harming, threatening federal authorities, so there is that. And I think one of the things that people get hung up on is the idea that the cop on the street in their neighborhood, a state police officer, other federal agents will identify themselves with their name on their lapel. And yes, their employing agency. But why should these immigration agents be any different and when it comes to the masks as well? You know, cops go out every day, everywhere across the country get threatened in one way or another–
TOM HOMAN: –I don’t know of–
ED O’KEEFE: But why- why have to wear all that and protect themselves when there are others out there wearing badges that don’t have to do that?
TOM HOMAN: Well, again, they are wearing badges. They’re wearing placards to identify what agency they’re from–
ED O’KEEFE: But their name isn’t on it, right?
TOM HOMAN: When it comes to masks I don’t I- I don’t know of another law enforcement agency in the country that has an 8,000% increase in threats. Just yesterday, the director of ICE his wife was filmed walking to work. His home address has been doxed. His kids have been doxed and filmed. So no, I don’t know of another agency in this country that has an 8000% increase. And look, let’s remember why we’re here, Ed. We’re here because the last four years, over 10 million illegal aliens crossed that border, released in this country unvetted ICE has to do a law enforcement response to deal with the last four years open border, where they claim the border was secure every day and it wasn’t.
ED O’KEEFE: What’s so wrong about obtaining a judicial warrant to enter private property?
TOM HOMAN: That’s not what the federal law requires. Congress themselves wrote the Immigration Nationality Act that gave power on the administrative warrant to arrest somebody, and that’s what’s set up in federal statutes. So if Congress wants that change, then Congress can legislate. But right now, ICE is acting within the framework of federal statutes enacted by Congress and signed by a president.
ED O’KEEFE: Well, as I recall, you have previously said that you thought judicial warrants were necessary for searches. There’s been this change in policy in that now ICE can go with these administrative warrants that are issued by ICE personnel. Why your change of heart? I mean, clearly there- at one point, at least you agreed that was necessary.
TOM HOMAN: No, I don’t have a changed heart. What I understand, and I wasn’t part of those discussions, is that DOJ interpret that law saying in certain- in certain circumstances, administrative warrant on somebody has a final order removal already had a due process issued by a [unintelligible] judge that can enter a premises. I’m not a part of that discussion, but that’s the DOJ guidance.
ED O’KEEFE: Last week, you announced the months long operation known as Metro Surge in Minnesota is winding down. ICE, of course, is going to maintain a presence in the state, but not at the levels we’ve seen in recent weeks. If things keep winding down, when should that surge be over?
TOM HOMAN: Well, look about as of we already removed well over 1000 people, and as of Monday, Tuesday, we’ll remove several hundred more. We’ll get back to the original footprint, with the exception of the agents there to do the fraud investigation, will stay there and continue their work until they’re done. The agents investigating the church issue where the people went into the church, they’ll stay and get that work done. But there will be- there will be a small force, a security force, what we call RFQs, that will- our security forces, that will respond to when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control, and they’ll remain for a short period of time, just to make sure the coordination, the agreements we have with local state law enforcement, stay in place, and they respond to a public safety threat when needed. And so hopefully those security forces- security a small footprint, security forces can remove, can be removed really fairly quickly. I’m hoping. I think things are going the right direction, and I got faith they’ll continue that way.
ED O’KEEFE: This was the largest deployment of federal immigration agents in department history. Do you anticipate there will be others on the scale seen in Minneapolis?
TOM HOMAN: I think it depends on the situation. I’ve said from day one that, you know we need to- we need to flood the zone in sanctuary cities with additional agents. The number of agents depend on the situation on the ground. How many known criminal targets are out there? Because we know we have a problem with sanctuary cities, because we know they’re releasing public safety threats in the public so rather than arrest that one criminal in jail, one agent wrestling one criminal alien, the safety, and security of a jail, which is safer for the agent, safer for the aliens, safer for the community, they release them in the street. Now we got to send a whole team, or six or seven people. That is a win we had in Minnesota. Everybody- because now we have agreements and coordination with jails, we can rest that public safety threat in the safety security of jail, which means we don’t have to send six or seven people out to look for them. So, I’m hoping other sanctuary cities look at what was- what happened in Minnesota, and how we- how we got to the place reds, which I think is a good place. I hope more people pay attention to that, and we work with the states to let our officers in the jail. You can’t- a lot of politicians are out there on the left or the Democrats saying, okay, ICE, we agree. You should be focusing on public safety threats. You should be focusing on illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes in this country, but they lock us out of the jail. You can’t square that. If you really want us to focus on the criminals, then let us in the jail. That’s the safest, most secure place to do our work.
ED O’KEEFE: A few other things quickly, if we can, as the surge winds down in Minneapolis, one of the more dramatic incidents now is very much in question. As you know, two ICE agents now on administrative leave pending an internal investigation because video evidence shows their sworn testimony appears to have been untruthful. Only hours after that incident occurred, you’ll recall DHS had said the ICE officer who shot the migrant they were targeting was being ambushed and feared for his life. That now appears to be untrue. You take that incident combined with the two deadly shootings in Minneapolis and an incident in Chicago recently where evidence contradicted the government’s claim a woman rammed an agent’s vehicle, and I wonder, does this all just further undermine trust in ICE across the country?
TOM HOMAN: Well, look, you know, my first press conference in Minnesota, I said I was bringing additional internal affairs agents in, just to make sure officers in the field was doing the right thing. And every one of those instances you just talked about were turned over to internal affairs. I know the FBI is investigating the cases also, so we’ll see where those investigations lead. But as the ICE Director said on Friday, people will be held accountable and they’ll be fully investigated, and however that investigation comes out, then disciplinary action or prosecutions will occur.
ED O’KEEFE: Right. A Wall Street Journal report published in recent days, I’m sure you’ve seen it, details widespread concerns with the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her chief advisor, Corey Lewandowski. The report says you rarely speak with the Secretary or Lewandowski, despite the fact that you oversee immigration issues as well from the White House perspective, and that you’ve repeatedly complained to the White House about them. What is your concern with Secretary Noem and Corey Lewandowski?
TOM HOMAN: Look, it’s one team, one fight. I’m not playing in that media. They’re trying to divide this administration. They want to attack the men and women who work in this administration. Look, do me and Secretary Nome agree on everything? No. That’s why we have discussions. That’s why every day we have a multi-agency conference call and meeting. We discuss going forward, and we have different opinions. Well, those different opinions are worked out, and we move forward. The bottom line is, we have the most secure border in history in this nation. We got record numbers of criminal aliens arrested and deported in this country because this is one team, one fight. The results speak for themselves.
ED O’KEEFE: But you don’t dispute, you’ve had disagreements with them at times, even if they’ve been resolved?
TOM HOMAN: I have a disagreement with we got- we got many federal agencies, and it’s not it’s- not like a out of control disagreement. I want to do it this way. Someone wants to do it this way. Then we talk about what works best in this situation. We all come to agreement in the end, but it’s a discussion of different ideas. I’ve been doing this for 40 years. We have the- Rodney Scott that runs CBP. He’s been doing it for 30 years. So we all come to the table. We come up with different ideas, but we settle on a mission, and I think the results of this mission speaks for themselves. Again, the most secure border in history of this nation, because of our collaboration and record numbers of criminal aliens being arrested and deported. The results speak for themselves.
ED O’KEEFE: Tom Homan, the White House border czar thank you for spending some of your Sunday with us. We appreciate it. ‘Face the Nation,’ we’ll be back in one minute. Stay with us.
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