President Donald Trump’s border czar insists immigration officers are not conducting racial-profiling raids—but accepts tattoos and accents can be clues.
Appearing on Morning Joe, Tom Homan defended the Supreme Court decision that lifted a pause on the Trump administration’s mandate allowing immigration agents to conduct stops without “reasonable suspicion.”
The raids had been halted in July by a Biden-appointed federal judge in Los Angeles, after widespread allegations that officers were targeting seemingly random Hispanic individuals to meet deportation quotas.
“Racial profiling is not happening at all, and the Supreme Court has agreed with that,” Homan told hosts Jonathan Lemire and Mika Brzezinski.
But the border czar’s argument began to unravel when Lemire pressed him on what exactly constitutes reasonable suspicion.
“Is it an accent, a tattoo, a job? Tell us what that means,” Lemire asked.
“A lot of those things combined,” Homan responded. “Look, we don’t arrest people just based off their looks. But, you know, it’s a myriad of factors,” he added, citing physical attributes like forehead tattoos.
The contradictions quickly turned contentious as Brzezinski pressed Homan further, asking for specifics on what makes someone a criminal.
When Homan denied inciting fear in immigrant communities, Brzezinski interjected, “An ICE vehicle parked outside of a Spanish church is a frightening sight, given what has happened in the country.” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey had mentioned the church stakeout earlier on the show.
The heated exchange also caught the attention of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who wrote in a post on X, “You can see the hatred in her eyes as Tom speaks the truth. Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display!”
The SCOTUS decision is a clear win for the Trump administration and paves the way for the president to ramp up mass deportations.
In a 6–3 decision, the court blocked a July order from a Biden-appointed federal judge in Los Angeles that had restricted immigration agents from conducting stops without “reasonable suspicion.”
In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the ruling “yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket.”
“We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,” she wrote.
