Democratic legislators walk out of a speech by Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's "border czar," in the Arizona House of Representatives on April 8, 2025. The Democrats held papers with the names of people that critics of the Trump administration say were wrongfully detained. Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
Tom Homan, the chief border security adviser for President Donald Trump, stumped for the administration’s mass deportation campaign at the Arizona Legislature on Tuesday.
He waved away criticisms about civil rights violations and said that the plan will keep resulting in the arrests and expulsions of undocumented people without criminal records.
“If you’re in this country illegally, you should be looking over your shoulder. It’s not OK to enter this country illegally — it’s a crime,” he said to enthusiastic applause from Republican lawmakers and law enforcement officials in attendance at a rare joint legislative session.
It is not a crime to enter the United States without authorization, though it is a civil violation of federal law.
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Homan’s visit comes as the White House faces increased scrutiny of its hostile immigration policies and accusations of flouting due process. Multiple international university students have been targeted and arrested over their political activism, culminating in the revocation of hundreds of student visas, including 50 at Arizona State University. And across the country, migrants with no criminal offenses, and many with pending asylum cases, have found themselves in the crosshairs of ICE.
Most recently, the administration flew 238 Venezuelan migrants to a high-security prison labor camp in El Salvador known for torture, without giving them the opportunity to contest allegations that they have ties to a violent gang in court. Several of those allegations were based solely on the fact that they have tattoos, and ICE officials have since admitted that a Salvadoran man on one of those flights was deported despite an existing legal order prohibiting doing just that because of an “administrative error.”
The Trump administration is currently facing a lawsuit over those deportation flights and its use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to remove migrants without due process. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order allowing the administration to continue using the act to justify removing Venezuelans 14 years and older suspected of being gang members, but also mandated that they be given “reasonable notice” to challenge deportation orders in court.
In Tuesday’s address, Homan defended those deportation flights, but didn’t acknowledge the fact that the allegations against those deported remain unproven.
“We’re not going to apologize for removing people through the Alien Enemies Act. They came here to unsettle this country, to cause harm…We will not apologize for sending two planeloads of terrorists out of this country,” he said, referring to the Trump administration’s action to designate the Tren de Aragua gang, which the deported migrants have been accused of being members of, as a terrorist group.
AZ Republicans promote their own border security measures
Homan traveled to Arizona with U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to attend the Border Security Expo, an annual event featuring military-grade surveillance technology for sale.
ICE director envisions Amazon-like mass deportation system: ‘Prime, but with human beings’
Noem kicked off her visit to the Grand Canyon State by joining local ICE officials in arresting undocumented people who are allegedly members of violent gangs, in a showy promo that has become a staple of her tenure.
Republican legislative leadership, meanwhile, invited Homan to speak at a joint legislative session to highlight the majority party’s willingness to support the administration’s agenda.
Senate President Warren Petersen, who is running for Arizona attorney general in 2026, touted border hawk legislation he’s championed as proof of his border security bona fides. The Republican from Gilbert was a driving force behind the Secure Border Act, which made it a state crime for migrants to cross the border anywhere but at an official port of entry.
An overwhelming 63% of Arizona voters cast their ballots in favor of the ballot measure last year.
This legislative session, Petersen has sponsored the Arizona ICE Act, which would prohibit the state, cities, towns, law enforcement agencies and even schools from passing policies that restrict cooperation with federal immigration officials.
Petersen said the two policies are linked. Last year’s measure, he said, allowed law enforcement officials to “engage in the immigration process,” while this year’s bill would prevent policies that inhibit the ability of Homan and the Trump administration from “remov(ing) the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens from the streets.”
“We just want to let you know that Arizona will do everything we can to support you in your efforts,” Petersen told Homan during his introduction.
In his speech, Homan denounced so-called “sanctuary cities” that limit their involvement with ICE officials and refuse to comply with immigration detainers. Also called ICE holds, detainers are written requests that law enforcement agencies hold a person in their custody for 48 hours after they would have been released, even if they haven’t been charged with any crime, to give immigration officials time to determine their legal status.
Petersen’s Arizona ICE Act would mandate compliance with ICE detainers and give the Arizona attorney general the power to take noncompliant law enforcement agencies to court. Homan advocated for increasing ICE’s access to jails, and singled out former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who was in the crowd — as an example to follow.
“We had no problem when that guy was in office,” he said, pointing to Arpaio and joking: “Matter of fact, he’d call us up if someone was in jail we might’ve missed.”
Arpaio’s time as the head of the largest county’s sheriff’s office was marred by rampant racial profiling. Nearly eight years after he was ousted, taxpayers are still footing a $314 million settlement for a lawsuit stemming from the former sheriff’s policies.
Trump to bring back family detention, separations
Homan also previewed the return of notorious anti-immigrant policies that became widely-rebuked hallmarks of Trump’s first foray into immigration enforcement: family detentions and zero-tolerance policy.
To defend the former, Homan reiterated the false claim that 300,000 migrant children are missing, and accused Biden administration officials of handing them over to unvetted sponsors that led to the children being trafficked.
While an August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to consistently “monitor the location and status of unaccompanied migrant children,” once they were placed with sponsors, who are often relatives already living in the country, immigrant advocates have said the number refers to a gap in a paper trail and not a case of missing children.
The report noted that more than 291,000 had not received a notice to appear in court and another 32,000 received a notice but failed to appear at their court hearings. Additionally, the figures in the report span Biden’s presidency and the last 15 months of Trump’s first administration.
To address that mischaracterized issue, Homan called for the return of family detention, a widely criticized policy from Trump’s first term that involves jailing immigrant parents with their children and infants. He claimed it would help make sure children aren’t entrusted to the wrong people.
“We can do DNA tests and make sure that child is with a parent and not a trafficker. We’re trying to protect children. We’re doing the right thing,” he said, to a standing ovation from GOP lawmakers and law enforcement officials.
While both former President Barack Obama and Trump previously detained parents with their children, Biden strongly criticized his predecessor’s use of the policy and ended it in 2021. Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under Trump’s direction, took the first steps to restart the program by publishing a request for proposal asking private prison companies to bid for contracts for detention facilities specifically intended to hold families. A Texas family detention center with a 2,400 capacity has already reopened its doors in anticipation.
Homan also praised Trump’s “Zero-Tolerance” policy, saying it helped “tank” border crossings. The policy drew backlash from immigrant rights groups who called it inhumane and it led to the separation of more than 5,000 children from their families. To justify it, Homan pointed out that U.S. citizens are separated from their children by local law enforcement officers when they commit crimes.
“Zero tolerance worked — the numbers went down. It’s sad and unfortunate that families get separated,” he said. “Law enforcement does it thousands of times across the country but there’s a good meaning behind it.”
Despite efforts to reunify children taken away from their parents beginning as soon as June 2018, just two months after the program was implemented when a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite the families, more than a thousand are still separated. A December 2024 report from a coalition of human rights groups, including the Human RIghts Watch, estimated that as many as 1,360 children have yet to be reunited with their families.
And many might never be reunited: some parents were murdered after being deported, others are impossible to find and some children died before they could be returned to their families.
‘Border Czar’ visit sparks protests
Just minutes after Homan was welcomed into the Arizona House of Representatives and began his speech, the handful of Democratic lawmakers in attendance filed out of the chamber, holding up papers with the names of people printed on them that critics of the Trump administration say were wrongfully detained.
Among them were Mahmoud Khalid, who helped organize pro-Palestianian protests at Colombia University and remains in ICE custody; Ranjani Srinivasan, another Columbia University student who also participated in the protests and chose to self-deport when her student visa was revoked; and Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran migrant who was sent to the Salvadoran prison last month because of an “administrative error.”
In the plaza between the legislative buildings, members of immigrant and voting rights groups Living United for Change in Arizona and Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona rallied against Homan’s presence. The public was barred from the legislative gallery.
As Homan and Republican lawmakers exited the chamber and headed inside the nearby Capitol museum, protestors circled the building’s entrance and chanted, “No hate no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” and “Shame!”
Sen. Analise Ortiz, who has vocally criticized anti-immigrant legislation at both the state and federal levels, told the Arizona Mirror that she and other Democrats were “really pissed off” that Republicans invited Homan to speak. The Phoenix Democrat said her constituents, and those of her colleagues, are calling on elected officials push back on the harmful policies that Homan has advanced.
“Our communities are demanding that we fight against the Trump administration, which is just flat out denying court orders and defying the law to roll out their mass deportations,” she said, referring to the likelihood that the White House ignored a district judge’s order to stop the deportation flights to El Salvador. “It’s terrifying what’s happening in this country.”
And while Republicans have held up the overwhelming support for the Secure the Border Act and Trump’s recapture of the state in last year’s election as proof that Arizonans want more aggressive border policies, Ortiz said she doesn’t believe they want their “coworkers or child’s teacher” to be deported without due process.
“I do believe that the vast majority of Arizonans want order on the border, but what Trump is promising is the exact opposite of order. It’s chaos,” Ortiz said.
Democratic Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan echoed that her party is firmly opposed to the violation of people’s constitutional rights, and said that Homan’s invitation amounts to a celebration of the Trump administration’s actions.
“What happens when you violate the law and violate due process is that we are disappearing people, and to have the federal government doing that in our names is unacceptable,” the Tucson Democrat said.
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