Homan Asks CBS for the Biden Numbers and Doesn't Get Them

White House border czar Tom Homan sat for a 34-minute interview with CBS News last week, and one short exchange is the part now circulating online. Asked about deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, Homan asked the correspondent across from him a question of his own: how many people died in ICE custody under Joe Biden?

CBS immigration correspondent Camilo Montoya-Galvez did not have the figure. The exchange sat quietly on the network's site over the weekend before conservative media picked it up on Oct. 5 and 6, and the complaint those outlets built around it is a familiar one on the right — that immigration numbers tend to arrive without a baseline.

It matters because the underlying claim is a serious one. CBS reported that official ICE data show 57 people have died in the agency's custody so far under this administration, and raised the prospect that 2026 could set a record. That is a number worth nailing down. So is the one Homan asked for.

What Was Actually Said

The interview, titled "Extended interview: Tom Homan on GOP criticisms of ICE, Renee Good killing and more," was posted by CBS News on Oct. 2 and runs 34 minutes and 41 seconds. It covers ICE tactics, body cameras, Republican criticism of the agency and the killing of Renee Good.

Montoya-Galvez laid out the finding plainly: "We looked at official ICE data, sir, and found that 57 people have died in the agency's custody so far under this administration." He added that ICE had reported another death that same day.

Homan's response was to flip the frame. "How many people died in custody during the Biden administration? Do you know?" he asked. The correspondent initially offered that it was a significant number, then said, "I don't have the data here."

"Of course you don't. Again, it's another loaded question against the Trump administration." — Tom Homan

The Western Journal, which transcribed the exchange in a commentary piece published Oct. 6, described the correspondent as frozen on camera; characterizations of how long the pause ran vary by outlet. Fox News, which wrote the exchange up the evening of Oct. 5, framed it more neutrally as a clash and quoted former Trump administration official Theo Wold calling CBS's line of questioning gotcha questions offered without supporting data.

The Numbers Nobody Produced

Here is the honest state of play: the comparison at the center of the viral clip was never resolved on camera, and it is not resolved now. Neither man put a Biden-era ICE custody death total on the record. ICE publishes annual death reports and sends congressional notifications; those documents would settle the argument. Until someone lays them side by side, the clip shows only that one party asked and the other could not answer.

The 57-death figure and the record-high projection come from CBS's own review of ICE data and have not been independently verified here. Homan's counterclaims are likewise his own assertions, and they are sourced in these accounts to a single transcription rather than to any agency statistics page.

Those claims were substantial. Homan said the ICE detention population has doubled, putting it at roughly 74,000 people in custody as of a few days before the interview. He said ICE detention standards are the highest in the industry, above state and federal institutions, and that ICE's in-custody death rate ranks among the lowest when measured against state prisons and the federal Bureau of Prisons. He also noted that many detainees arrive from poor countries and that an ICE physician is sometimes the first doctor they have seen.

Why the Baseline Fight Keeps Happening

A raw death count rises when the detained population rises, which is why the rate — deaths per thousand detainees, measured against a prior administration doing the same work — is the figure that carries the most information. If ICE is holding roughly twice as many people as it was, a higher total is partly arithmetic. If the rate is also climbing, that is a separate and more serious finding.

None of that makes a death in government custody a small thing, and neither side of the exchange suggested otherwise. The dispute on camera was narrower: what the count of 57 should be measured against.

The interview also touched on the Renee Good case, with Homan addressing the family's lawsuit in companion segments posted the same day and saying he wishes she were alive.

What happens next is straightforward enough. ICE's fiscal-year death reports for 2021 through 2024 would supply the Biden-era baseline, and the agency's current detention statistics would test Homan's population and rate claims. CBS, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have not been asked to comment on the exchange for this report.