Department of Homeland Security officials used a Tampa press event to outline stepped-up immigration enforcement measures and to decry what they called growing threats to federal agents and their families.

"We don't want them. Not 1," Micah Bach, identified in the event as a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said as he described a post-meeting recommendation to the White House for a travel ban on countries described as producing security risks. Bach also said the department had "announced an immediate suspension of all Afghan immigration processing, a full halt on special immigrant visas, and a reexamination of every single entry from high risk nations" and that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had "halted all asylum decisions" until additional vetting could be completed.

The speakers framed the measures as responses to security incidents and to what they described as a rise in threats to immigration officers. Bach said an Afghan national paroled under the Biden administration had recently opened fire on two national guardsmen near the White House, leaving one dead and another critically injured; he presented that attack as part of the rationale for the policy steps he described. Those claims were made onstage and attributed to the speakers below; the event transcript records the assertions but does not include corroborating documentation in the remarks themselves.

Lauren Biss, introduced as a deputy assistant secretary at DHS, disputed what she called "fake" news narratives about family separation and about reporting on assaults against law enforcement. Biss said "ICE does not separate families," described a process in which parents are offered the option of departing with children or placing them with a designated safe adult, and encouraged use of the CBP One app; she also cited a $3,000 stipend tied to voluntary departure in the remarks.

Speakers repeatedly said enforcement personnel have been targeted outside work, citing social-media and alleged dark-web postings of personal details such as where spouses or children go to school. Multiple people at the event offered large percentage figures for increases in threats and assaults — numbers that were stated by speakers during the event; the department did not provide source documents for those specific percentage claims during the remarks.

No formal rule changes, executive orders, or implementing documents were presented at the event. Several of the actions described by speakers were characterized as administrative steps or recommendations (for example, a travel ban recommendation following a meeting with the president), and the speakers did not provide implementation dates or legal texts onstage. The event also included a question-and-answer session in which Secretary Kristi Noem reiterated that operations would follow established law-enforcement protocols and said the department is "going after violent criminals" and would deport those apprehended.

The event combined policy statements with personnel recognition; multiple claims about numbers, prior arrests, and increases in threats were presented by speakers and are reported here as they were stated onstage. Verification of those statistical claims and the operational status of the recommended travel ban would require documentation beyond the public remarks made at the Tampa event.

The Department of Homeland Security press conference ended after the Q&A and recognition remarks; officials said some enforcement and vetting steps were underway but did not provide a timetable for local operations in the Tampa area.