Fox News liberal Jessica Tarlov was hammered online after claiming that President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown was out of step with what Americans voted for in the 2024 election. Tarlov argued that voters did not expect Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests at places such as Home Depot or immigration courthouses. Her claim quickly ran into the obvious problem: Trump openly campaigned on conducting the largest deportation operation in American history.
Tarlov made the remarks during a discussion on “The Five” about the Trump administration’s expanded immigration-enforcement operations. The Fox News co-host has repeatedly criticized Trump’s deportation policies and argued that voters wanted illegal-alien criminals removed rather than a broader enforcement campaign. This time, she insisted that the administration had exceeded the mandate it received from voters.
“This isn’t what people voted for,” Tarlov declared during the segment. She argued that ICE’s operations were out of proportion with what the public wanted before turning to the locations where agents had been making arrests. “They didn’t vote for people to show up at Home Depots,” she said.
Conservative commentator Gina Milan shared the clip on X with a blunt assessment: “Moron.” Tarlov’s argument was also rejected by Townhall, which pointed out that immigration enforcement was hardly a hidden feature of Trump’s campaign. The outlet argued that Tarlov was confusing what Democratic voters wanted with the agenda supported by the coalition that returned Trump to the White House.
Trump’s campaign promise could scarcely have been clearer. The 2024 Republican Party platform listed carrying out “the largest deportation operation in American history” as its second major commitment, immediately after sealing the border. Trump repeated that pledge at rallies, during interviews, and in his address accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
Polling available at the time also created trouble for Tarlov’s assertion about the public. A Marquette Law School national survey conducted in May 2025 found that 66% of respondents favored deporting immigrants living illegally in the United States, while 34% opposed it.
Watch Tarlov’s spurious claim here:
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https://x.com/ginamilan_/status/1943370941263687763
Tarlov’s mention of Home Depot appeared to point to ICE operations targeting locations where illegal immigrants gathered in search of day labor. Her mention of immigration courts referenced arrests of people appearing for federal immigration court dates. Those tactics may have attracted protests and criticism from Democrats, but opposition to those specific enforcement methods didn’t negate the pledge on which Trump ran, or or his public support.
Trump emphasized that promise during his July 2024 Republican National Convention address. “That’s why, to keep our family safe, the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” he told the convention. He even said the planned operation would exceed the deportation campaign conducted under President Dwight Eisenhower.
The president again addressed the effort before a joint session of Congress in March 2025, when he called upon lawmakers to provide the funding needed to carry it out. Trump said his administration intended to “complete the largest deportation operation in American history” and urged Congress to approve the necessary resources “without delay.” By the time Tarlov made her remarks, the policy she described as something voters had never requested had been written into the Republican platform, repeated throughout the presidential campaign, and presented to Congress as a central commitment of Trump’s second term.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.