A convicted criminal allegedly charged with sex crimes was spooked to see Dr. Phil after he was scooped during one of President Donald Trump’s turbo-charged ICE raids.
The famous TV shrink embedded with U.S. immigration enforcement officers as they trolled the streets of Chicago and aired live on his streaming platform MeritTV over the weekend. Alongside Thomas D. Homan, the border czar for President Donald Trump recently appointed as ICE acting director, the group encountered a man—who appeared to be in his mid-thirties—that agreed to speak on camera.
“You’ve never been deported before?” Dr. Phil asked the man, before a mumbled back and forth. “You’re Dr. Phil?!” the man later said in a moment of realization. “You look like Dr. Phil.”
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“Yeah?!” Dr. Phil responded, adding: “How do you know me?” The man, who said he was born in Thailand but is not a U.S. citizen, then said: “I seen you on Dr. Phil.”
Earlier in the conversation, the man said he had never been deported before and also refused to speak in any detail about his alleged crimes. Homan then revealed that he had been charged with sex crimes.
“I’m not gonna stand here. I want to talk to my lawyer,” he said. “You been charged with sex crimes against children?” Dr. Phil asked.
“Not really,” the man said. “Not really?” Dr. Phil said. “Never been deported?”
“Nope,” the man replied. “Huh…” Dr. Phil said in response. “Let’s take him in, process, and lock him up,” Homan then told the assembled agents.
Dr. Phil, real name Phil McGraw, took to X Sunday to share a clip of the incident. “JUST IN: The first arrest in Chicago with @RealTomHoman was a convicted sex offender and internet predator from Thailand," he said.
He added that it was an effort to detain 270 “high-value targets,” defending the mission against suggestions that it was a general sweep. “They’re not sweeping neighborhoods like people are trying to imply,” he said.
ICE said it began conducting “enhanced targeted operations” alongside partner agencies in Chicago on Sunday “to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”
In the past year, Dr. Phil emerged as a friendly face in Trumpworld, cozying up to the president in two softball interviews.
