ICE expects to deport more than 600,000 undocumented immigrants by the end of the year, President Trump's border czar Tom Homan said at Axios' Future of Defense Summit on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The estimate comes as the Trump administration touted that approximately 1.6 million undocumented immigrants have "voluntarily" self-deported, and another 400,000 were deported in the first 250 days of Trump's second term.
- "If you're in the United States illegally, you're not off the table," Homan told Axios' Brittany Gibson in Washington D.C. "If we find you, we're going to arrest you."
The latest: Homan said 70% of individuals arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are classified as criminals, while the other 30 to 35% are identified as national security threats without criminal pasts.
- When Gibson flagged those numbers, saying they didn't' match the bi-monthly report ICE shares with Congress, Homan told her, that the data lawmakers receive is "behind" and "it's how you read the raw data."
- Homan added that a significant number of those considered national security threats have final orders of removal and were already given due process, but he didn't confirm how many people fit that designation.
- Since Trump retook office, the number of people in immigration detention centers has risen by more than 50%, an Axios review found.
Context: Homan, who retired less than a year into his first stint as acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump's first administration, returned as the White House's border czar to enforce the president's aggressive immigration agenda.
- Homan served in several roles before being named executive associate director of ICE under Obama in 2013.
Go deeper: Watch: Axios Future of Defense Summit
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional comments from Homan.
