Homan Says 3,000 More ICE Agents Are Coming, and Blames Courts for Slowing Deportations
The border czar told Fox News that arrests are at record levels and that injunctions, class actions and habeas petitions force releases. A year after the Supreme Court curbed universal injunctions, the fight over who gets to stop enforcement has moved to class actions and state suits.
By Claire Hollister, Politics and Policy
Published · 6 min read
The Overview
The facts, straight
BREAKING / DEVELOPING: Based on Tom Homan's Fox News interview posted Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. Details may change.
White House border czar Tom Homan says more immigration officers are on the way. In an interview on Fox News' "The Big Weekend Show," posted Saturday, Homan said the administration will add 3,000 more ICE agents. He also said arrests are higher than ever, and that the courts are a big reason removals aren't moving faster.
"I think President Trump is keeping his promise because we're arresting more people now than ever before," Homan said, as quoted by the Hindustan Times. By that outlet's account, he said ICE broke its arrest records repeatedly over the summer and that September brought the agency's highest monthly number of removals. Fox's video page does not include a transcript, so Radio Purple is relying on that reporting for his exact words.
Post: Leading Report (@LeadingReport) on X, Oct. 17, 2026.
Homan also pointed to the legal fight. He said more than 100 nationwide injunctions and class-action lawsuits are blocking some deportations, and that the government is handling about 85,000 habeas cases, the petitions detained people file to challenge their detention. He said court orders sometimes force officers to release detainees and then find them again. Those figures are Homan's. Radio Purple could not find an official DHS or court count to confirm them. "It's not as simple as, 'Let's go arrest them and deport them,'" he said, noting that many people arrested have a right to a hearing before an immigration judge.
What the official numbers say. ICE's last published hiring figures are from January. The agency said on Jan. 3 that it had hired more than 12,000 officers and employees in less than a year, blowing past "its original hiring target of 10,000," and that its workforce grew from 10,000 to 22,000. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told the House Homeland Security Committee on Feb. 10 that ICE made "nearly 379,000 arrests" from Jan. 20, 2025, through Jan. 20, 2026, and "over 475,000 removals" in the prior year. ICE has not published a release on the 3,000 new agents Homan described.
What the Supreme Court decided. In Trump v. CASA, decided June 27, 2025, the Court held 6-3 that "universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts." The Court said its decision "rests solely on the statutory authority that federal courts possess under the Judiciary Act of 1789." Lower-court orders now must be no broader "than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue." The Court left two big doors open. It did not limit class actions, which it described as the modern route for group-wide relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, with its own requirements. It also declined to decide whether the states that sued needed broader relief, leaving that to the lower courts. The case was about the birthright-citizenship executive order, not deportation operations.
What the Left Says
The progressive and Democratic case
Civil-liberties groups say the courts are doing their job. When CASA came down, the ACLU called it "a troubling but limited decision" and noted that the Court "did not foreclose all forms of nationwide relief," in its statement. The same day, the ACLU and its partners filed a nationwide class action seeking "protection for all families in the country."
Habeas corpus, the source of the petitions Homan cited, lets a detained person ask a judge whether the government has legal authority to hold them. In her CASA dissent, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that "no right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates."
Where Reality Likely Sits
Radio Purple's analysis
Both sides agree on more than the shouting suggests. No one in this debate says the government may detain people without legal authority, and no one says courts may ignore the limits the Supreme Court set in CASA. The disagreement is over how wide a lower court's order can reach, and how fast.
Some of this can be checked and some of it can't yet. ICE's hiring and arrest figures are on the record. Homan's 3,000 new agents, his "more than 100" injunctions and class actions, and his 85,000 habeas cases are his numbers until DHS or the courts publish theirs. The bigger open question is the one Alito flagged: how strictly judges will apply Rule 23 and state-standing rules. The Supreme Court has not yet answered it.
With the midterms about two weeks away, the real test may be whether voters see enforcement as lawful and orderly. Which matters more to you: how many arrests ICE makes, or how the courts check them?
Perspective: Keith L. Gross, Legal & Policy Correspondent
This section is commentary. It reflects the views of Keith L. Gross, Radio Purple's Legal & Policy Correspondent, and is separate from the reporting above.
Courts exist to decide cases, and anyone who is detained deserves a fair hearing. That isn't in dispute. What deserves a harder look is litigation used as a strategy, where the goal isn't to win a case on the merits but to run out the clock on a president's lawful agenda.
Delay is not neutral. A policy that voters chose, carried out under laws Congress already passed, can be frozen for months by a single order from a single district court. Even if the government wins in the end, that time doesn't come back. In any other setting, lawyers would call that irreparable harm.
When that happens again and again, power shifts. Decisions the Constitution gives to the executive end up being made, in practice, from the bench. Article II is not a junior partner to Article I or Article III. The three branches are co-equal, and each has its own lane.
The Supreme Court began restoring that balance in Trump v. CASA, when it held that universal injunctions likely exceed what Congress has authorized federal courts to do. Justice Alito's warning about class actions and third-party standing shows the work isn't finished. Separation of powers has to mean something in practice, not just on paper. If it doesn't, voters will keep electing presidents and keep wondering why the outcomes they voted for never arrive.
What the Right Says
The conservative and Republican case
Supporters of the administration say the results speak for themselves. ICE more than doubled its workforce in under a year, according to the agency, and Lyons testified to nearly 379,000 arrests in the administration's first year. Homan's message is that hiring alone can't finish the job if district courts keep issuing orders that stop it.
They also point to the Supreme Court itself. In a concurrence in CASA, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, warned that "lax enforcement of the requirements for third-party standing and class certification would create a potentially significant loophole to today's decision." Federal courts, he wrote, "should thus be vigilant against such potential abuses of these tools." Homan's complaint about class actions fits that warning. If class actions and state suits do what universal injunctions used to do, a single district judge can still slow enforcement across the country.
Sources & Citations
- Fox News, “'Border czar' Tom Homan touts major ICE arrest surge (The Big Weekend Show)”, October 17, 2026.
- Supreme Court of the United States, “Trump v. CASA, Inc., No. 24A884, 606 U.S. ___ (2025)”, June 27, 2025.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “ICE announces historic 120% manpower increase thanks to recruitment campaign that brought in 12,000 officers and agents”, January 3, 2026.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “Testimony of Todd M. Lyons, Acting Director, ICE”, February 10, 2026.
- American Civil Liberties Union, “Supreme Court Limits Nationwide Injunctions, Potentially Allowing Partial Enforcement of Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order”, June 27, 2025.
- American Civil Liberties Union, “Groups File Nationwide Class-Action Lawsuit Over Trump Birthright Citizenship Order”, June 27, 2025.
- Hindustan Times (Asmi), “Trump administration to add 3,000 ICE agents to accelerate mass deportations across US”, October 18, 2026.
- X, “Post by Leading Report (@LeadingReport)”, October 17, 2026.
Positions above are attributed to the public statements and published reporting cited here. Quotations are taken from these sources; Radio Purple does not publish unattributed or invented quotes. See an error? Request a correction.