White House border czar Tom Homan today claimed that the US-Mexican border wall is saving thousands of lives.

Speaking at this week’s National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, Homan argued that the wall and strict border controls cut down on dangerous crossings through remote deserts and rivers, where migrants often die or fall victim to traffickers. “Women and children can’t climb over a wall, so they go to lawful entry points where agents can help them,” he said. “That means fewer rapes, fewer children sold into trafficking, and fewer people dying in the desert.”

Homan went on to cite statistics from US Border and Customs and Border Protection, claiming that border crossings were down 96% from July 2023. “When illegal immigration was down 96%, that meant thousands of women weren’t being sexually assaulted on the journey, and thousands of pounds of fentanyl weren’t coming across,” the Trump appointee said. “Every mile of secure border saves lives.”

Throughout the speech, Homan drew repeated bursts of applause, but the loudest came when he condemned Biden-era policies for turning what he called “the most secure border” into “the most insecure”. He went on: “It wasn’t mismanagement, it wasn’t incompetence — it was by design… And the result was record fentanyl deaths, record human trafficking, and record profits for cartels.”

Amid Trump’s plan to recruit a further 10,000 immigration officers this year, Homan castigated the “fake media” and Democrats for the spike in attacks on ICE. He dismissed criticism from sanctuary city leaders and members of Congress who compared ICE to “Nazis”, calling such rhetoric “disgusting”. These officers were, Homan claimed, merely enforcing the laws enacted by Congress. “Every day ICE officers take dangerous criminals off the streets, and every day that makes communities safer,” he said. “You may not like the laws, but Congress wrote them. And enforcing them saves lives — thousands of lives.”

The former ICE chief also addressed criticism of Trump’s border policies, including family separations. He said the administration was committed to reuniting children with their parents, but stressed that due process had to be respected. “When people lose their asylum cases, they need to go home. That’s what the law says,” he argued. “Enforcing that law is not inhumane — it’s what keeps the border secure.”

When Trump entered office for the second time, his administration promised to achieve one million annual deportations. ICE has so far fallen short of this target, recording nearly 150,000 deportations in the President’s first six months — or an average of more than 800 per day — putting the average number of deportations above Joe Biden’s tally. If deportations continue at this rate, it will mark the country’s highest deportation tally since 2014, when the Obama administration recorded 316,000 ICE deportations, per historical agency figures.

Homan today framed the debate not as a partisan issue, but as one of law and order. “Every illegal crossing avoided, every trafficker stopped, every child rescued is a life saved,” he said. “That’s why the wall saves lives. That’s why a secure border matters.”