Tom Homan wants to see ICE get better at “messaging” as the public’s opinion of the agency tanks.
The 64-year-old border czar said on a Thursday episode of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle that Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs to get better at getting “the truth” out there.
“I think we need to get better at messaging what we’re doing,” said Homan.
Public opinion has swung dramatically against ICE in the wake of the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good at an ICE protest in Minnesota. The agency’s favorability is -17 points underwater, per CNN, while a plurality of Americans support abolishing ICE, according to an Economist/YouGov poll.
Notably, popular podcaster Joe Rogan compared ICE to the Nazis’ secret police force on Tuesday, saying, “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
Homan attributed ICE’s unpopularity to media spin rather than the agency’s actions.
“If people listen to most of the media—not this network—they’re gonna hear that ICE is separating families every day, or deporting U.S. citizen children, or we’re doing operations in elementary schools and churches,” Homan complained.
“Lies!” interjected Laura Ingraham.
“We gotta push back the lies, and I think a lot of people don’t get the facts,” Homan concluded next to live footage of ICE arresting a protestor in Minneapolis.
Dramatic stories of ICE-involved incidents have reverberated across the country since Trump’s sweeping immigration raids. In December, PBS published multiple firsthand testimonies of families separated by ICE. That same month, The New York Times reported on families who feared for their children’s safety due to ICE raids being conducted near their schools.
The Department of Homeland Security has maintained that it does not conduct raids on schools.
The DHS did not seem worried about ICE’s flagging popularity, noting that an overwhelming majority of Americans support deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records.
“The latest polls show that support for the America First agenda has not wavered–including a New York Times poll and a Harvard Caps Harris poll [that show] 8 in 10 Americans support deporting illegal aliens with criminal records,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told the Daily Beast.
“70% of illegal aliens arrested by ICE have been charged with or convicted of a crime in the U.S. The American people, the law, and common sense are on our side, and we will not stop until law and order is restored after Biden’s open border chaos flooded our country with the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” she added.
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