Trump's Border Czar Blames Media for Jeopardizing ICE Raids: 'This Isn't a Game'

Border Czar Tom Homan is blaming news media leaks for spreading information that compromised a large-scale deportation operation in the Denver suburbs. Homan said the raid targeted the Venezuela-linked Tren de Aragua gang, but the leaks allowed some of them to escape.

More than 100 members of the gang were targeted Wednesday at apartment buildings and other sites in Denver and neighboring Aurora, The Associated Press reports. But it remains unclear how many of them were ultimately arrested.

"This isn't a game. We know that TDA is dangerous," Homan said Thursday in a statement to reporters outside the White House.

"Everybody can agree to that, but when they get a heads-up that we are coming, it's only a matter of time before our officers are ambushed," he added. "Their job is dangerous enough. So we are going to address this very seriously."

Fox News, which was embedded in the operation, said 30 people were arrested, including at least one member of the gang. But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said more than 100 members of TDA were deported from Colorado Wednesday.

The Associated Press also notes that agents raided an apartment complex frequented by gang members where several individuals died due to alleged fentanyl overdoses. A local judge even identified the site as a public safety threat and ordered its closure by Feb. 18.

During the raid, dozens of heavily armed officials from several federal agencies, many wearing masks and arriving in armored vehicles, swarmed locations across the Denver area in the daylong operation that had been anticipated since Trump took office.

They knocked down doors in at least one apartment building and provoked outrage among activists, who were on scene at some of the operations and taunted agents as they worked.

Homan's comment came after ICE postponed an immigration crackdown operation in Aurora in late January, claiming knowledge of the effort had spread throughout the community and agents could be affected.

The agency had temporarily called off the operation due to media leaks, NBC reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. They said the leaks could have put the agents in the operation at risk.

That same week, the Drug Enforcement Administration's Rocky Mountain Field Division executed a search warrant in Denver at a makeshift club and arrested "numerous individuals" associated and connected with the Tren de Aragua gang.

Colorado has been a major focus of the Trump camp, not only in the first weeks of the administration, but also in the campaign trail during the 2024 general elections. Prior to the November contest, now-President Trump and Vice President JD Vance spread false rumors that Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs in Aurora, as well as Springfield, Ohio. The Republican duo also falsely claimed the Colorado city had been taken over by Venezuelan gangs, which the local police later disproved.