Pete Davidson walked back onto the Saturday Night Live set this weekend for the show’s 1,000th episode, and he didn’t waste time on nostalgia.
The former cast member came back to play Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s border czar, rallying a room full of bewildered federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. The joke was brutal: Homan appeared to be the only functional adult in the room, which was saying something.
“Look, I’m Tom Homan, OK?” Pete Davidson’s version said. “I’m the ‘separating families at the border guy.’ I’m the ‘on-film taking a $50,000 bribe guy.’ And y’all are making me look like the upstanding, reasonable adult in the room. That’s crazy.”
Pete Davidson used his SNL skit to call out ICE for racial profiling and civil‑rights violations, and to drag Donald Trump for trying to distract the public from the Epstein files.😭 pic.twitter.com/cl6GRobPfq
— ໊ (@BardisMedia) February 1, 2026
The sketch arrived days after the real Homan was deployed to Minneapolis to manage a crisis the Trump administration created. Federal immigration officers flooded the city, conducting hundreds of arrests and several fatal shootings. International outrage followed.
Minnesota became the focal point of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, and the backlash forced the White House to respond. On Thursday, Homan announced “massive changes” would be coming after reaching an agreement with local and state officials to reduce the number of agents in the city.
The cold open didn’t pull punches. Pete Davidson’s Homan opened with a question: why was Greg Bovino, the previous official overseeing the operation, dismissed?
“I want to stress that it wasn’t because he did a bad job, or publicly lied about the shooting of an American citizen, or even, uh-oh, dressed like a Nazi,” Davidson said. “It was that he was filmed doing these things.”
SNL just addressed ICE directly in their Cold Open, with Pete Davidson cameoing as Tom Homan
Mikey Day as ICE agent: Some of these people protesting have guns. That shouldn’t be allowed, right?
Pete as Tom: Well, let’s flip it around. How many of you went to a Stop the Steal… pic.twitter.com/Xi26hFvUEq
— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) February 1, 2026
The audience laughed. The point landed. The administration’s problem wasn’t the conduct. It was the documentation.
Pete Davidson’s Homan then tried to quiz the agents on their mission. The results were absurd. “Now who can tell me why we’re here in Minneapolis?” he asked. One agent said, “Pass.” Another guessed “Army.”
When asked what they should be doing, one responded, “Um, wild ‘n out?” Another wondered if the job was protecting Americans from former CNN reporter Don Lemon, who was arrested this week during protests.
The sketch built toward a moment of uncomfortable clarity. One agent finally offered an honest answer: “This could be wrong, but that you hired a bunch of angry, aggressive guys, gave us guns and didn’t train us, so this is maybe what you wanted to happen?”
“Oh come on, man,” Pete Davidson’s Homan replied. “Don’t start thinking now.”
🚨BREAKING: Tom Homan just went FULL BEAST MODE, confirmed EVERY SINGLE ILLEGAL ALIEN gets deported the SECOND ICE encounters them. NO EXCEPTIONS. NO AMNESTY. NO HIDING.
Simple poll. Please be honest! As of today, how much do you still trust and support ICE and Tom Homan?
A.… pic.twitter.com/pXc9MYKQ4Q
— Stand Up For Trump (@StandUpForTrmp) January 31, 2026
The real Homan served under Barack Obama before returning to immigration enforcement under Trump. He’s been a polarizing figure since Trump’s first term, when family separations at the border became administration policy.
The allegation about a $50,000 bribe from federal agents, which Tom Homan has denied, surfaced more recently. Davidson’s sketch referenced both, packaging them as credentials for dysfunction.
Minneapolis wasn’t chosen at random. The city became ground zero for Trump’s immigration crackdown, and the federal response generated the kind of images that dominate news cycles: arrests, protests, fatal shootings, and chaos.
Homan’s arrival was meant to calm things down. Whether it worked remains unclear. What is clear: the situation was bad enough that SNL could mock the administration’s border czar and still have him come off as the least ridiculous person in the room.
Pete Davidson’s return to Studio 8H wasn’t sentimental. It was surgical. The sketch didn’t need elaborate setups or complicated jokes. The premise was simple: the people enforcing immigration policy don’t know why they’re there, and the person leading them is infamous for policies most Americans found cruel. The punchline wrote itself.
The 1,000th episode of Saturday Night Live was supposed to be a celebration. Instead, it became a reminder that the show’s best work has always been holding up a mirror. Sometimes the reflection is funny. Sometimes it’s just accurate.
