The leader of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted that he had never even heard of some of the countries his agency has been deporting immigrants to.

“Now we are actually removing people to countries that I didn’t even know existed,” Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said during a panel discussion at the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix, speaking of the third country deportation program in which the administration has sent immigrants to African nations they have no ties to. 

Lyons added that the third country deportation program has been “a huge game changer” in implementing President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. 

Lyons was one of a series of Trump administration speakers, including “border czar” Tom Homan, who spoke Tuesday, and interim U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who will be giving the event’s keynote speech on Wednesday. 

Lyons, who will be resigning at the end of this month, made the comment during a “State of the Border” panel discussion. Last year, Lyons used the session to declare that ICE’s goal was to deport millions of people with the efficiency that Amazon delivers packages. 

During last year’s event, Homan and other speakers told the military industrial complex representatives in the crowd that the Trump administration is depending on the private sector to implement its mass deportation agenda. 

That message remained largely unchanged this year, though Lyons and others also took aim at the public perception of the enforcement actions which have led to nearly two-thirds of Americans saying ICE has gone too far. 

Homan claimed that those who work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE and similar agencies have been “vilified by the media” and members of Congress, taking particular offense to comments made by elected officials comparing their actions to Nazi Germany. 

Homan said that ICE is just “enforcing the laws” written by members of Congress and called those remarks the “ultimate insult.” 

The rampant use of violence by immigration agents, including the shooting deaths of two American citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year, has been well documented on social media and in the press.

Homan also went on to falsely claim that ICE has not arrested individuals in churches or at hospitals. There have been multiple reports of recent immigration enforcement activity at churches as well as at hospitals. The Trump administration in 2025 rolled back federal protections that designated hospitals as protected areas where ICE could not do enforcement actions. 

On those enforcement actions, Homan said that more are coming. He said he had been speaking with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who has agreed to hire more deportation officers. 

“You ain’t seen shit yet,” Homan said to applause and cheers from the crowd. “This is going to be a good year.” 

Homan also claimed that New York will be seeing more ICE agents due to a proposed law that would ban police in the Empire State from entering into 287(g) agreements with ICE. Such agreements leverage local resources to do the investigative legwork for federal immigration agents and increase deportation rates. 

“We’re going to flood the zone. You’re going to see more ICE agents than you’ve seen before,” Homan said of New York if they pass such a law, claiming that it would make the state less safe and make it harder for ICE to do its job. “You forced us in this position.” 

During the “State of the Border” panel in which Lyons participated, officials lauded the Trump administration for letting them “do the work” and touted the low number of illegal border crossings that have occurred under the second Trump administration. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott also spoke directly to “any illegal aliens out there.” 

“We’re going to go find your entire family, your entire network. Anybody you spoke to on the phone. We’re going to take out that entire network,” Scott said, adding that one arrest at the border can lead to multiple arrests inside the United States of other individuals. 

Both Scott and Lyons also shot back at a question asked by a member of the audience who asked for them to respond to reporting by ProPublica that found more than 170 U.S. citizens have been arrested by immigration agents.

“We don’t arrest U.S. citizens, we arrest criminals. Period,” Scott said, adding that any U.S. citizen they do arrest is likely a criminal and that they are overseen by the Office of the Inspector General and FBI. Lyons made a similar statement. 

The Trump administration has gutted the OIG and DHS itself has reportedly been obstructing the work of the OIG in recent months. ICE has also arrested U.S. citizens during enforcement actions who were often later released without being charged with a crime. 

A small group of protesters showed up to the event Tuesday. Among them was Democratic U.S. Rep. Yassamin Ansari.

On the show floor, vendors hawked their wares to Border Patrol agents, Homeland Security Investigations agents and local law enforcement that were seen by the Arizona Mirror walking the floor. 

A large majority of this year’s vendors focused on camera platforms, some meant to provide persistent surveillance and others meant to be placed at ports of entry to scan faces in cars in real time. 

Also present were a number of vendors aiming to integrate artificial intelligence with workbook systems or camera platforms. 

Two of the most prevalent forms of tech at the expo this year were drones and technology to counter them. 

But it wasn’t just surveillance technology and military grade tech meant for the border at the expo. 

One piece of equipment shown to the Mirror was the “Upper Hand Glove” by On Point Solutions. It is a wearable metal detector in the form of a glove meant to streamline the metal detection process. 

Also present at the expo were companies looking to cash in on transporting detained immigrants as well as housing them. 

The Mirror examined the list of companies set to be in attendance to highlight some of the key trends as well as noteworthy companies seeking the attention of the government officials.  

Some have ties to Trump and his allies, such as Andruil Industries, which is tied to Trump ally Palantir.

WASHINGTON — Nearly all Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee failed to show up for a Wednesday hearing convened by Democrats to highlight President Donald Trump’s aggressive tactics in his mass deportation campaign that have ensnared U.S. citizens. 

It marked a rare full committee hearing that Democrats were allowed to conduct because of Minority Day in the House. 

Democrats used the opportunity to call witnesses who are U.S. citizens and were harmed, in some cases shot, by federal immigration officers. Lawmakers also focused on two U.S. citizens killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. 

Following the deadly shootings in January, Democrats refused to approve any more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which has led to a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security since mid-February.  

“Under President Trump, ICE and CBP have killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in cold blood, and shot, beat, harassed, arrested, or locked up countless more innocent people,” the top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said. “Congress cannot stand idly by while Americans are hurt and killed by their own government.”

Democrats also invited Trump officials tasked with crafting and carrying out the president’s immigration agenda: White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, the border czar. 

Neither Miller nor Homan showed up. The White House did not answer questions from States Newsroom regarding Miller or Homan’s absence from the hearing. 

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson blamed Democrats for keeping “the Department of Homeland Security shuttered, not caring about vital services – like TSA, FEMA, and ICE – going unfunded.” 

“Instead of lying about President Trump’s extremely successful deportation operations of criminal illegal aliens, House Democrats should fully reopen the Department of Homeland Security and stop putting illegal aliens before American citizens,”Jackson said.

The chair of the committee, Andrew Garbarino, called Wednesday’s hearing “a distraction from the fact that DHS has been shut down for over 65 days and the security impacts of that (are) real.”

Garbarino, a New York Republican, and the other GOP lawmakers on the committee did not ask any of the witnesses any questions. 

Americans under fire

The Americans harmed by federal immigration officials include:

• Marimar Martinez, a Chicago preschool worker whom Border Patrol officers shot five times.
• Rev. David Black, whom ICE officials shot in the face with pepper-ball rounds while he protested outside an Illinois detention facility.
• George Retes Jr., an Army veteran in California whom immigration agents apprehended on his way to work, tear-gassed and kept detained for three days.
• Ryan Ecklund, a real estate agent in Minnesota whom federal agents detained after he filmed them while at a grocery store. 

Martinez has appeared in the past before Congress in unofficial Democratic events to share her story about how on Oct. 4, she was shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum. 

DHS shared her photo online, falsely claimed she rammed into Border Patrol with her car and labeled her a domestic terrorist. The Trump administration tried to indict her on federal charges, but eventually dismissed the case against her.

“On Friday I was teaching the young children at the Montessori school and we were singing and dancing and getting ready for spooky season preparing fall activities to do the following week and on Saturday my own government was calling me a ‘domestic terrorist’ and I was in a federal detention center with bullet holes all over my body,” she told the committee. “There were times where I did not believe this was all real and then I would touch my bullet wounds and knew it was certainly real.”

She said she was concerned other people would be shot and killed by federal immigration agents, as Pretti and Good were.

“It’s bound to happen sooner or later if we don’t hold these agents accountable for their actions,” she said.

No apologies

Following the two deadly shootings by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, the leaders of ICE and CBP appeared before the Senate and House committees that have jurisdiction over DHS. 

While there, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott and ICE acting head Todd Lyons refused to apologize to the families of Good and Pretti. Lyons has announced he will resign at the end of May, saying he wants to spend more time with his family. 

The aggressive immigration deportation campaign in Minneapolis, which has a high Somalian refugee population, also spurred calls from Republicans to push then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. She stepped down last month after Senate Republicans grilled her over an ad campaign and slow response to providing disaster relief. 

The president tapped former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to steer the department. The Senate last month confirmed Mullin. 

One of the witnesses, Retes, said his goal is for Congress to pass legislation in order to hold federal immigration agents accountable.

“Federal officials are basically impossible to sue,” Retes said. “Federal agents basically have immunity.” 

He added that he wants Congress to do something, and expressed his frustration that “change doesn’t move fast enough.” 

Ecklund criticized federal agents within DHS, and pointed out the irony of the department’s unofficial slogan of going after “the worst of the worst” in conducting immigration enforcement. 

“‘Your best’ and the ‘best of DHS’ is the least that the American public deserve,” he said. “You have not given us your best.”

Martinez said agents are not held accountable. 

“I’ve been through hell and back,” she said. “These agents — Charles Exum — have not even been held accountable for their actions.” 

She added that she doesn’t even know if Exum is still working for CBP.

Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green asked Martinez if she would feel comfortable showing lawmakers where she was shot. She agreed and rolled up her sleeve, showing a dark scar on her upper arm, and pulled up her pants to show another wound across her upper thigh. 

“It’s hard to manage all this, to even process what happened,” she said. “Being shot for protecting your community. I want the world to see my pain, my trauma. This is not something to joke about. This is my life.”

Green thanked her and told her that “you deserve justice.” 

Minister shot with pepper balls

Black told the committee that he was “horrified by the radical evil being perpetrated by my government.”

He said he was outside a detention facility in Chicago and was in the middle of praying when he was shot by federal agents with pepper balls. 

“I am outraged by the blasphemy of those who support brutal ICE and CBP tactics yet call themselves Christians,” he said. “They make a mockery of the sacrifice of God’s love on behalf of the world. 

“Yet instead of living into Christ’s rich promise of a Kingdom of peace, freedom, and prosperity, many of those calling themselves Christian are blindly supporting institutions like ICE and CBP, even as they dominate, coerce, and terrorize American communities,” he continued. 

The only path forward, he argued to lawmakers, is to dismantle ICE and CBP, and redirect that funding to “support programs that feed the hungry, sate the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — for in the words of Jesus, ‘just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’”

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress are once again looking toward the complex budget reconciliation process as a way to achieve some of their policy goals without Democratic votes. 

GOP leaders were able to use the special pathway last year to approve the “big, beautiful” law that extended tax cuts, overhauled and cut Medicaid, provided hundreds of billions in extra funding for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and raised the country’s debt limit by $5 trillion, among other provisions. 

Now, Republicans will try to use the process at least one more time to provide years of funding to the Department of Homeland Security amid a two-month shutdown, with none of the constraints on immigration enforcement that Democrats have sought. 

Democrats’ push to rein in enforcement after federal immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis led to a record-breaking stalemate over the annual DHS appropriations bill. 

The funding lapse hasn’t yet affected Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, DHS agencies which Republicans bolstered in the last reconciliation bill. But it has had an impact on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.

Reconciliation will require Republicans in the House and Senate to be almost completely unified on their goals, especially if the party tries to include elements of a hot-button voter identification bill called the SAVE America Act or other policies that don’t have a significant impact on federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit. 

What goes in and what is kept out of another reconciliation package will become increasingly important to GOP leaders’ reelection message as the country moves closer to November’s midterm elections. 

Why use budget reconciliation? 

Regular bills need a simple majority vote to pass the House, but at least 60 senators need to vote to end debate in that chamber. This step, sometimes called the legislative filibuster, or cloture, forces bipartisanship on most legislation, unless it moves through the reconciliation process. 

Budget reconciliation bills are exempt from that Senate rule. 

So why haven’t Republicans used reconciliation to enact all of their policy goals and campaign promises since taking over unified control last year? 

Budget reconciliation bills must follow a specific process and meet strict requirements in the Senate, known as the Byrd rule, named for former West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd.

Very simply, this requires reconciliation bills to address federal spending, revenue, or debt in a way that is not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. 

How complicated could reconciliation really be?

Very.

First, the House and Senate must adopt a budget resolution with identical sets of reconciliation instructions for committees. Those guidelines will give committee leaders either a minimum amount to spend during the next decade or a maximum amount they can add to the deficit during that window. 

The Senate cannot approve the budget resolution without going through a marathon amendment voting session referred to as a vote-a-rama, which typically lasts well into the night. 

A budget resolution is a tax and spending blueprint, sort of like a blueprint for building a house before you’ve actually gotten a mortgage or purchased any land. It’s a proposal, but it doesn’t actually change tax law or spend any money. 

Once the budget is adopted, the House committees that receive reconciliation instructions must draft, debate and vote to send their bill to the Budget Committee. 

Then, the Budget Committee bundles all of the reconciliation bills together in one package and sends it to the House floor, where lawmakers must vote to send it to the Senate, where things get even more complex. 

What happens next?

Before a reconciliation bill goes to the Senate floor, it moves through something referred to as the “Byrd bath,” where the Senate parliamentarian determines if each provision fits the strict rules. 

Senate leaders can take up the House-passed version of the bill or work through the committee process on their side of the Capitol. Typically, the upper chamber goes directly to the floor and amends the House-passed bill. 

The Senate then goes through another vote-a-rama session, giving the minority party, currently Democrats, the chance to put all 100 lawmakers in that chamber on the record about various proposals in the bill. 

That process will be especially challenging this year, with Democrats looking to institute guardrails on immigration enforcement activities and get Republicans up for reelection on the record over some of the most pressing issues facing the country. 

If the Senate makes any changes to the House-passed bill, it must go back to that chamber for final approval before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature. 

If the Senate approves a bill identical to the one passed by the House, it would go to Trump without needing another House vote. 

What exactly is the Byrd rule?

Elements in the bill would violate that rule if they:

• Didn’t change revenue, spending, or the debt limit. 
• Change revenue or spending in a way deemed “merely incidental.”
• Change policy outside the jurisdiction of the authorizing committee.
• Didn’t comply with the committee’s reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution.
• Increases the deficit past the budget window (usually 10 years).
• Change Social Security in any way, shape, or form.

How many times can Republicans use reconciliation? Is it unlimited? 

They have two more chances during this Congress but are limited by how many budget resolutions they can adopt. 

GOP leaders used the fiscal 2025 budget resolution to set up passage of the “big, beautiful” law. They can write a fiscal 2026 budget resolution for one more round and then use the fiscal 2027 budget resolution to run through a third reconciliation process, if they want to. 

Fiscal years for the federal government begin on Oct. 1.