Homan's striking war rhetoric sparks fear: 'Are they landing marines at Guadalcanal?'

White House border czar Tom Homan on Thursday sparked alarm when he used terminology associated with overseas war to describe federal immigration operations taking place in Minnesota.

During a press briefing, Homan was asked about the number of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents operating in Minnesota.

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“3,000,” Homan replied. “There’s been some rotations. Another thing I witnessed when I came here, I’ll share this with you, I’ve met a lot of people, they’ve been in theater, some of them have been in theater for eight months. So there’s going to be rotations of personnel.”

Typically terms such as “rotations” and “theater” are not used to describe domestic law enforcement operations, but overseas military deployments.

Many critics were quick to notice Homan’s use of war jargon to describe actions being taken in a US city and said it was reflective of how the Trump administration sees itself as an occupying force in its own country.

“'In theater’ like they’re landing marines at Guadalcanal or something,” wrote Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), in a post on X. “This stuff is happening in suburban American communities, that’s where they’re sending violent, masked invaders.”

Northwestern University historian Kathleen Belew also expressed shock at Homan’s rhetoric.

“'In theater’ is an expression that has no place anywhere within the United States,” she wrote on Bluesky. “'In theater’ means in a war.”

Andrew Lawrence, deputy director of rapid response as Media Matters, said Homan’s war talk was “a crazy way to describe Minneapolis,” while documentary filmmaker John Darwin Kurc described it as a “frightening characterization.”

Shelby Edwards, a retired US Army major, also recognized the violent implications of Homan’s words.

“Incredibly damaging how military language has infiltrated these agencies,” she observed. “'In theater’ is used for deployments into foreign nations, when we deploy soldiers we say things like this. This is America. This is an American agency assigned to an American city.”