White House border czar Tom Homan said Thursday the Trump administration needs to be better about its "messaging" over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations across the country.
"I think we're being egged on by the press," Homan told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle" on Fox News. "I think there's a lot of false media out there, and I think we need to be better at messaging what we're doing out there."
"Look, bottom line is 70 percent of everybody arrested is a criminal," he continued. "We need to start advertising that every single day and putting pictures all over social media. The bottom line is if people listen to most of the media, this network, they're going to hear that ICE is separating families everyday, we're deporting U.S. citizen children, we're doing operations in elementary schools and churches and hospitals."
Homan said the administration needs to "push back the lies, because I think a lot of people don't get the facts, and we've got to be better at getting the facts out there."
Protests against ICE sparked across the country in the last week after ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Good. Local leaders slammed ICE, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) telling the agency to "get the f -- out of Minneapolis."
The Trump administration accused Good of attempting to run Ross over with her SUV in what they called an act of "domestic terrorism." President Trump told CBS News's Tony Dokoupil that Good, "under normal circumstances, was a very solid, wonderful person. But her actions were pretty tough."
On Tuesday, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out told the federal government to release three tribal members detained by ICE. He warned that failing "to honor our treaties and federal law will result in the Tribe pursuing all available legal remedies, including habeas corpus relief, injunctive actions, civil rights violation claims, and treaty enforcement litigation."
"Our sovereignty is inherent," Star Comes Out said. "Our treaties are binding. Our citizenship is not negotiable."
A Venezuelan migrant was shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis the following day after the officer was allegedly attacked by several people while attempting to apprehend the migrant in question, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. The migrant and the officer were hospitalized, and the two other people involved were arrested.
Along with Frey, other city leaders have told ICE to leave their cities alone. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) said she was "deeply alarmed" of reports of ICE activity in the city. She described ICE's "show of force" following Good’s death and the shooting of Keith Porter Jr. in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles “particularly troubling.”
Bass added that Angelenos “and Americans across the country - have made it clear: we want ICE out of our cities.”