CBS News has published the full 60 Minutes interview with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival after omitting key exchanges.
Percival sat down with 60 Minutes contributor Gianna Toboni for a segment titled “Destination: Nowhere,” which aired Sunday and examined the Trump administration’s third-country deportation policy.
Percival later said the interview lasted nearly an hour, but only part of it aired. On Oct. 26, 2026, 60 Minutes published the full version on its official YouTube channel, while DHS criticized the program’s editing and argued that the omitted exchanges provided additional context about the administration’s policies.
In one clip shared by Percival on X, he challenged Toboni over whether deportees faced persecution or torture after returning to their home countries.
“Are you suggesting that when these people went back to their home countries that they were persecuted or tortured?” Percival asked.
Toboni said she was referencing a U.S. federal judge’s ruling, prompting Percival to ask whether the judge had suggested deportees were “persecuted and tortured when they went back to their home country.”
She responded that deportees were “more than likely to be tortured or persecuted” if returned home, adding that “some have faced violence,” but maintained that was not her claim.
Percival argued that Toboni’s position implied Ghana “is not accurately adjudicating” deportees’ fears of persecution. If Ghana were making such errors, he said, “you would expect those people to return to their home country and then face persecution or torture because Ghana would be getting it wrong.”
He suggested the lack of reported persecution or torture among those returned home could indicate Ghana’s “procedures are adequate.” The DHS general counsel added that the “ultimate question is are they actually sending someone somewhere where they’re going to be persecuted or tortured, and it doesn’t sound like you are making that claim.”
When asked about the extended interview, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis criticized 60 Minutes for what she called “selective editing,” telling the Caller that the program “failed to include key information about how third country removals are essential to the safety of the American people.”
“These removals allow us to remove some of the most barbaric criminals, including child rapists and murderers whose home countries refuse to take them back,” Bis added.
“Thanks to these removals, America is no longer a safe haven for the world’s criminals,” she continued, accusing 60 Minutes of refusing to cover victims of illegal alien crime while choosing to “peddle false sob stories of illegal aliens.”
Another clip of the interview posted by Percival on X shows the discussion, which focused on the criminal records of deportees and whether immigration enforcement should focus primarily on those accused or convicted of violent offenses.
Toboni said “murder and rape” were the two crimes she heard Percival and the administration emphasize most frequently. Citing an “internal DHS document,” she said that during President Donald Trump’s first year in office, “0.5 percent were accused or convicted of homicide, 1.4 percent were accused or convicted of sexual assault. I mean, together that’s 2 percent.”
Percival pushed back, asking, “Isn’t it wonderful that we are getting those people out of the country, should that be the limit of who has to follow the law? Just rapist and murderers have to follow the law?”
Toboni pressed him on the remaining 98 percent, asking, “What about everybody else?”
“Number one, everyone has to follow the law; it is not an excuse to say I’m not going to follow the law just because I haven’t raped or killed anybody,” Percival responded, arguing that people who commit “less significant crimes” often go on to commit more serious offenses.
He said he wants “anyone who could commit a crime who is not supposed to be in this country, to be out of this country because every illegal alien crime is a preventable crime.” He also pointed to immigration laws passed by Congress and enforced by DHS, noting that some removals involve “following an order from an immigration judge.”
During the interview, Toboni also asked whether Percival felt compassion for “folks who don’t have a ‘violent criminal record’” who are “being separated from their families,” including U.S. citizens whose parents are deported.
Percival responded that the people he has “the most compassion for is the American victims who we’re protecting,” arguing that “justice is about doing things that might be unpleasant to protect people.”
“Nobody always feels good about dispensing justice,” he said, adding that “strong leaders” must be willing to make difficult decisions to “protect people.” He maintained that officials “always have compassion,” but again repeated that their focus is on victims.
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