The Trump administration’s border czar taunted liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in an interview Tuesday night over the arrest of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest.

Tom Homan has sparred with progressives over immigration policy since he took a leading role on the initiative.

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“AOC went on social media saying if we put a finger on any of her co-workers that were at the Newark facility, there would be consequences. Well, guess what? We did it. I’m waiting on the consequences,” he told Fox News.

Homan: AOC said if you put a finger on any congress people that were at the Newark facility, there would be consequences. Well, guess what? We did it. I'm waiting on the consequences pic.twitter.com/SpsUduE9Rl

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 27, 2025

Homan appears to be referring to Ocasio-Cortez’s comments during a livestream earlier this month.

“If anyone is breaking the law in this situation, it’s not members of Congress, it’s the Department of Homeland Security. It’s people like Tom Homan and [DHS] Secretary Kristi Noem,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “You lay a finger on someone, on … any of the representatives that were there. You lay a finger on them, we’re going to have a problem.”

McIver was charged with felony assault, resisting, and impeding law enforcement last week. The same prosecutor dropped the trespassing charge against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from the same protest.

McIver was joined by Reps. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) for the May 9 protest at the ICE-run Delaney Hall detention facility. DHS officials said the lawmakers and Newark mayor disrupted the entry of a detainee transport bus and forced their way through the gate, placing officers in harm’s way.

House Democratic leadership condemned the charges against her.

“Members of Congress have a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch wherever and whenever it is needed,” they wrote in a joint statement. “We are lawfully permitted to show up at any federal facility unannounced to conduct an inspection on behalf of the American people. By visiting the detention center in Newark, Rep. McIver and two other Members of Congress were upholding their oath of office. They didn’t assault anyone, but were themselves aggressively mistreated by illegally masked individuals.”

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Homan also sparred with Ocasio-Cortez in the media earlier this month: “I take pleasure [that] I can live with her mind rent-free every day, but we all know exactly what she’s doing,” Homan said.

Ocasio-Cortez had said she wasn’t afraid of Homan at a Queens, New York, town hall: “Tom Homan said he was going to refer me to [the] DOJ because I’m using my free speech rights in order to advise people of their constitutional protections. To that I say: Come for me. Do I look like I care?”