“Saturday Night Live” dedicated the cold open of its thousandth episode to a skit portraying Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minnesota as untrained, boyish paramilitary goons who need to be reined in by President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.
Comedian Pete Davidson, playing the role of Homan, stood behind a lectern to address a room of ICE agents and explain why Trump recently dismissed Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.
“I want to stress that it wasn’t because he did a bad job or publicly lied about the shooting of an American citizen or even — uh oh — dressed like a Nazi. It was that he was filmed doing these things,” Davidson said, with the audience erupting into laughter. “And the president no likey that.”
Homan is now leading Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis after Bovino departed the city last week amid a mounting public outcry over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal immigration personnel. Bovino had said — despite video evidence to the contrary — that the intensive care nurse wanted to “massacre law enforcement.”
Like a schoolteacher, Davidson asked the group of agents a series of questions about how they should behave in public.
“When do we want to use force?” Davidson’s Homan asked.
“Right away,” one faux agent responded.
“No, think of the opposite,” Davidson said.
Then, another ICE agent offered his best guess: “Preemptively,” he said.
“No, it’s kind of a trick question because we actually don’t want to use force,” Davidson explained. “Remember, the job, ultimately, is about keeping America safe from what?”
An ICE agent raised his hand.
“This could be wrong, but Don Lemon?”
Lemon, a former CNN host who has prolifically documented the ICE raids in Minneapolis and protests against them on his social media channels, was arrested Thursday and faces charges including conspiracy against rights. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Another independent journalist, Georgia Fort, was arrested on similar charges. She live-streamed federal agents peering into the windows of her home before dawn as she demanded a warrant.
Free speech advocates, journalism organizations and other rights groups have denounced their arrests as violations of the First Amendment.
In the skit, an ICE agent had an epiphany that he was part of “a bunch of angry, aggressive guys” who were given guns without training and suggested the violent results of their operations in American cities were exactly what the Trump administration “wanted to happen.”
“Oh, come on, man. Don’t start thinking now,” Davidson responded.
SNL also took aim at Homan himself, referencing a 2024 incident in which he was caught on tape accepting a bag filled with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen in Texas. The Trump administration shut down an investigation into the incident, but Homan — then a civilian — allegedly accepted the money from the undercover agents in exchange for potentially helping the men land contracts related to immigration enforcement if Trump won the election, The Washington Post previously reported.
“You got to do better,” Davidson, as Homan, told the room of ICE agents. “Look, I’m Tom Homan, okay? I’m the ‘separating families at the border’ guy. I’m the ‘on film taking a $50,000 bribe’ guy. And y’all are making me look like the upstanding, reasonable adult in the room. That’s crazy.”
Trump gave a glowing review Saturday of Homan’s performance as border czar and defended Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, who is facing growing calls for her dismissal.
“Tom Homan is a star. He’s incredible,” Trump told a group of reporters aboard Air Force One. Without providing evidence, he said crime has decreased in Minnesota in recent weeks amid ICE’s operations in Minneapolis, saying agents have “taken out thousands and thousands of killers and murderers and everything else” and “removed them from our country.”
Trump also said he supports federal agents using “force” if they are met with disrespect, vandalism or violence.
“If they do anything bad to our people, they will have to suffer, I’m sorry,” the president said. “If they start spitting at people’s faces, punching our people, punching our soldiers, our patriots, they will get taken care of in at least an equal way.”
Trump said he told federal agents that they would be “allowed” to “do something back” to protesters: “If they throw bricks at a car, at one of our vehicles … they’re going to be met with very, very serious force.”
Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard hosted Saturday’s show and appeared in a skit as an ideal immigrant in the Trump administration’s eyes. Rapper Cardi B was the show’s musical guest.
SNL also skewered the Trump administration over the latest batch of Epstein files, released by the Justice Department on Friday. The files — which include 2,000 videos and 180,000 images — are expected to be the last major release and became public more than a month after the deadline set by law.
In the cold open, Davidson urged ICE agents to “forget everything” they were instructed to do before.
“We’re not here to intimidate, racially profile or violate anyone’s rights,” he said. “So again, what are we looking for?”
“Epstein files,” one agent responded.
“Nope. We actually just released those to distract from this,” Davidson replied. “You know, which is ironic, because we did this to distract from those,” he added, referring to ICE’s surge into Minneapolis.
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