Pentagon Wants $200 Billion For War — Erik Prince Said He Could Deport 12 Million Illegals For Fraction Of That
'It takes money to kill bad guys'
White House offers concessions to end DHS shutdown — but Dems still choose illegal aliens over unpaid American TSA agents
President Donald Trump's administration has offered several concessions to persuade lawmakers to restart funding for the Department of Homeland Security, but Democrats continue to refuse to compensate Transportation Security Administration personnel.
The White House and Democratic lawmakers have remained in a negotiation stalemate since the DHS shut down on February 14.
'If this continues, it's not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports – particularly smaller ones if callout rates go up.'
Border czar Tom Homan and the White House director of legislative affairs, James Braid, wrote a letter dated March 17 to Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Katie Britt of Alabama, detailing the administration's offered concessions.
The letter, which was shared by the Daily Wire, explained that the "majority" of Democrats' demands "would make it impossible to fully protect American citizens from dangerous criminal aliens and expose law enforcement and their families to increasing threats of violence."
"In other words, they would prioritize illegal aliens above American families," it reads.
The letter detailed how Homan ended the surge operation in Minnesota, canceled Immigration and Customs Enforcement's roving patrols, updated protocols for dealing with unlawful agitators, deployed body-worn cameras, and enhanced cooperation with local law enforcement.
RELATED: Spring break blues: DHS highlights outrageous airport conditions amid Democrat shutdown
Homan and Braid stated that the White House has offered to codify several improved guidelines, including expanding the use of body-worn cameras, limiting immigration enforcement activities in certain sensitive locations, increasing the oversight of detention centers, and requiring officers to visibly display their identification.
Despite the administration's efforts to negotiate, Democratic lawmakers repeatedly failed to make a good-faith effort to compromise, according to Homan and Braid.
"The Administration has worked in good faith to again reach bipartisan agreement on full funding for the entire Department of Homeland Security and institute common-sense operational improvements to federal immigration enforcement operations that enhance the safety of American communities," the letter reads.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused the White House of not taking the negotiations seriously.
"The issue is, they're not getting serious," Schumer stated. "The key issues of warrants when you bust into someone's house, the key issue of identity of police and no masks, they haven't budged on those."
RELATED: 'Is it even REMOTELY reasonable?' Scott Jennings demolishes liberal CNN panel on DHS funding feud
Meanwhile, TSA agents missed their first full paycheck last week. An estimated 366 TSA agents quit last month, NBC News found.
A TSA spokesperson told Fox News that the national callout rate jumped to 10.19% on March 15, compared to 2% before the shutdown.
"If this continues, it's not hyperbole to suggest that we may have to quite literally shut down airports — particularly smaller ones if callout rates go up," acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl told the news outlet.
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‘Phase one’ was quality control. ‘Phase two’ needs to be quantity control.
Everyone in America has an opinion on what has gone right or wrong at the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies, particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. To answer the Talking Heads lyric “Well, how did I get here?” would yield a thousand different answers. I have a pretty good sense of what happened. Even before President Trump returned to the White House, I argued that meeting his bold deportation goals would require very different enforcement tactics than the ones the administration chose.
That debate makes for great fodder for finger-pointing. But a better question is: Where do we go next?
The administration needs to move its attention from sanctuary cities to sanctuary farms, factories, and industrial hubs.
To answer it, some of the nation’s leading immigration policy and legal experts, former senior and rank-and-file law enforcement officials, and advocates are coming together to devise a way forward. Details will be announced in the days to come, but the goal is straightforward: President Trump can and will meet his core campaign promise to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported about 230,000 illegal aliens from the interior of the United States. That is a far cry from the 1 million figure some administration officials floated as a projection — and far below other totals the administration has suggested at various points. Making analysis harder, the Department of Homeland Security stopped releasing enforcement data for the first time in decades.
President Trump promised to exceed the deportation efforts of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, by the most conservative estimates, removed about one-third of the illegal population in 1954. Any way you cut the data, even using the lowest-end estimates of the total illegal population in 2025, the administration is not on pace.
One reason: In its first year, the Trump administration prioritized a particular subset of illegal aliens — criminals. People can debate whether that was the right call, but that’s what happened. Prioritizing criminals means concentrating resources on fewer targets, and it has produced high-profile standoffs in cities like Minneapolis and Los Angeles. I will refer to that 2025 effort as “worst first,” as Border Czar Tom Homan has sometimes called it — phase one.
RELATED: Federalism cannot be a shield for sanctuary defiance
We can credit the Trump administration for highlighting the issue of criminal illegal aliens, removing many, and forcing the hand of radical Democrats, some of whom have taken the absurd position of rioting in defense of rapists and murderers. They are who we thought they were.
Now phase two can begin: widening the aperture of immigration enforcement and placing quantity above the perceived “quality” of deportations. The goal was mass deportations, not the “best” deportations. In short, the public wants commas in the numbers.
The Trump administration can, at minimum, quadruple last year’s totals. It can do it quickly if it shifts priorities — especially by refocusing on worksite enforcement. The administration needs to move its attention from sanctuary cities to sanctuary farms, factories, and industrial hubs.
Deportation is a contact sport — not only between ICE and illegal aliens, but between the Trump administration and special interests that value cheap labor, politicians who need cheap talking points, and activist judges and violent mobs. Those forces can be overcome, and in the coming weeks and months, we will show how.
The goal is to help President Trump deliver on what he promised — and to surpass President Eisenhower’s historic efforts. To do that, President Trump needs support from the base and the right, not a constant drumbeat of consultants, pollsters, and “moderate” Republicans trying to undermine him. Those forces are coming together, and I believe the result will be less drama and more commas.
Americans deserve a road map to move from phase one into a more successful phase two.
The ICE Drawdown In Minneapolis Is Probably A Surge To California
The Department of Homeland Security has been rapidly growing its footprint across the country, but California is high on the list of new and expanded ICE offices.Tom Homan signals seismic shift in Minneapolis operation
Border czar Tom Homan announced that he will be making significant changes to the federal presence in Minneapolis, citing major progress made on the ground.
Homan recapped the administration's efforts in Minneapolis, including locating 3,364 unaccompanied migrant children who were lost under former President Joe Biden's leadership. Homan also touted progress made with local and state officials, thanking both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).
'We have a lot of work to do across this country.'
In light of the progress made, Homan announced that Operation Metro Surge was ending and that he has begun withdrawing federal agents from Minneapolis.
"I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude," Homan said.
RELATED: 'Justice is coming': Border czar Tom Homan vows to stay in Minneapolis 'until the problem is gone'
"A significant drawdown has already been under way this week and will continue through the next week," Homan added.
Homan clarified that the federal resources previously sent to Minneapolis will either return to their original post or be reassigned to continue their efforts in another city.
"We have a lot of work to do across this country to remove public safety risks who shouldn't even be in this country and to deliver on President Trump's promise for strong border security and mass deportation," Homan said.
"Law enforcement officers drawn down from this surge operation will either return to their duty station or be assigned elsewhere to achieve just that."
RELATED: Trump offers hilarious rebuttal to Tim Walz's absurd Civil War analogy
Homan also dispelled several inaccurate narratives about ICE's presence in Minneapolis.
"During this surge operation, ICE has not arrested anybody inside a hospital," Homan said. "We have not arrested anybody inside of an elementary school. We have not arrested anybody inside a church.”
“However, those locations are not off the table.”
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DHS official says Ilhan Omar’s citizenship could be revoked if fraud is proven
BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler has done some investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and what she found has her asking whether or not Omar could face denaturalization — or even deportation — if her U.S. citizenship was obtained through fraud.
And Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin may have some answers.
“I wonder if the Department of Homeland Security is aware of this potential asylum fraud on the part of Ilhan Omar’s father that ended up begetting her ability to be a naturalized citizen,” Wheeler tells McLaughlin.
“We’re certainly aware of this, and it’s something that has been looked into. Under U.S. law, the grounds for denaturalization is if citizenship was procured on the basis of fraud. It’s very much a case-by-case basis,” McLaughlin responds.
“That’s something of course that the president has Truthed quite a bit about this, and that’s something that people are looking into,” she adds.
Wheeler points out that several weeks ago, Tom Homan also said that the DHS was looking into her case.
“But there’s various aspects of her case. There’s the case of, you know, her marriage to her brother. There’s the case of some money issues. There’s the case of her father. And it seems to me if her father had committed fraud with his asylum case, and she was a minor at the time, then her naturalized citizenship would have been obtained invalidly,” Wheeler says.
“That’s certainly what it sounds like could be the case there,” McLaughlin says. “Like I said, under U.S. law, if the grounds for citizenship is based on fraud, then ... denaturalization is certainly a possibility.”
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