Border Czar Tom Homan demands apology from Illinois governor for spreading grade school ICE raid hoax

After Martinez made the false claim about the ICE agents, Governor Pritzker posted to X: “After a week of Republicans sowing fear and chaos, the first reports of raids in Chicago are at an elementary school. Targeting children and separating families is cruel and un-American.”

The claimed ICE agents, however, were members of US Secret Service who were there to investigate an unrelated matter involving threats made on TikTok. ICE agents were never at the school.

In response, Homan demanded an apology from Pritzker and said that Martinez lied about the incident: “Pedro Martinez lied. He lied to the city of Chicago. He knew they were secret service agents, because I talked to people involved. They left their credentials. He knew exactly who was there. So he lied. Again, sowing fear in the immigrant community.

“Governor Pritzker, rather than calling ICE and asking ‘did this happen,’ he goes on social media and terrifies elementary schools [saying] ICE agents are walking in there. He accuses me of terrifying the community—no, he terrified the community, he terrified the children,” Homan continued.

In an interview with MSNBC, Martinez had falsely claimed that “individuals came to our schools… that presented credentials and shared that they were from ICE. Our staff followed the protocols, we were very clear with them, with our principals and security guards, and any front office staff to make sure they know that we are not to share any information with the immigration department or ICE.”

Homan called Pritzker's actions "plain wrong," and said that ICE needed an apology from the governor. The Border Czar also noted that ICE and immigration agencies are keeping children safe, stating that 9 sexual predators, “many of them child sex predators” were arrested by ICE yesterday.

“We save children. ICE saves children. We aren’t going to schools and scaring the hell out of them… Children shouldn’t have to fear ICE agents walking into a school to arrest them.”

Homan was then asked about comments made by pop star Selena Gomez, who posted a video to social media of herself weeping and saying that she felt like her people were “getting attacked.” Gomez would delete the video shortly after it was posted.

Homan noted that he does not believe any families had been arrested, and that public safety threats and national security threats had been arrested so far. “President Trump won the election on this one issue. Securing our border and saving lives. What happened on our southern border over the last four years Is the biggest national security threat, at least in my lifetime.”

Homan was asked about illegal immigrants who belong to countries that the United States does not have a repatriation agreement with, to which he was somewhat dismissive: “We’ve got President Trump. They’ll take them back,” Homan said.