‘People Die’: Tom Homan Stuns With Response to 75-Year-Old Man Dying In ICE Custody

White House border czar Tom Homan speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, raised eyebrows this week with a stunning answer when asked to weigh in on reports of a 75-year-old man dying in ICE custody.

“There are reports of a 75-year-old Cuban national who died in ICE custody. He had lived in the United States for 60 years. He was being held in ICE detention in Florida. Is there anything you can tell us about that? There’s still not a lot of information how he died,” a reporter asked Homan outside the White House on Monday.

“I’m unaware of that. I’m not aware of that. I mean, people die in ICE custody. People die in county jails. People die in state prisons,” Homan replied, adding:

I mean if you look at, you know when I was ICE’s director and we drilled down -– what the question should be is how many lives does ICE save because when they go into detention we find many with diseases and stuff that we deal with right away to prevent death.

So I’m not aware of a specific case, but I’ll say this people can argue with me all they want, but the facts are the facts. I think the politicians in New Jersey found this out that we have the highest detention standards in the industry. I’ll compare an ICE detention facility against any state prison, against any federal facility. I’ll go head-to-head with any of them. You go to ICE.gov and look at our detention standards. It’s the highest detention standards in the industry, at a very expensive cost to the taxpayers. So people say, the detention standards are horrendous. Go look for yourself, then come back and talk to me.

Homan’s reply quickly went viral online and was met with anger by critics who found it to be overly callous.

“This is Homan’s response to the fact that a man who was in the U.S. for 60 years died after 3 weeks in ICE detention. We are denying people human dignity,” replied the Bulwark’s Adrian Carrasquillo.

“This callous response & blatant disregard for people’s lives is breathtaking and shows how careless ICE & DHS are while literally holding people’s lives in their hands. Giving ICE $45 billion more to jail people, as Congress is poised to, is unconscionable,” added the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“Even if he died of totally natural causes and there was nothing ICE could have done to prevent it… This is still a moral tragedy. Isidro Perez risked his life to come to America. He fled Communism to get here. He lived here for six freakin’ decades,” noted Reason’s Eric Boehm – naming the man who died in ICE custody.

Below are some additional reactions:

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