The Moment
For its 1,000th episode, “Saturday Night Live” didn’t pop champagne. It went straight for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The show opened with a cold open built around the ongoing ICE crackdowns in Minneapolis, where real-world protests and investigations are reportedly still unfolding after deadly immigration operations. Pete Davidson made a surprise return to play White House border czar Tom Homan, walking into a roomful of fictional ICE agents who seemed, frankly, too dumb and too angry for anyone’s comfort.
The agents in the sketch were portrayed as clueless about their own job, tossing out answers like “Army” when asked why they were in Minneapolis and joking about hunting for “Epstein files.” The script even nodded to a reported arrest of Don Lemon tied to his immigration coverage, folding that into the chaos.
The tone didn’t soften as the scene built. Davidson’s character tried to stress civil rights and restraint, only to be met with a deadpan conclusion that they couldn’t do the job without violating Americans’ rights. His final advice? Maybe just try not to get filmed.
Online, reaction was instant and heated. Some viewers blasted the show for turning a charged law-enforcement crisis into what they saw as partisan lecturing, insisting they “thought this was a comedy show.” Others cheered SNL for finally saying the quiet part out loud about aggressive immigration enforcement.
🚨 JUST IN: SNL marks landmark 1,000th episode with divisive cold open sketch on ICE crackdowns as Kristi Noem ridiculed 🚨
In the milestone show (aired Jan 31, 2026), Pete Davidson returned as Border Czar Tom Homan in a Minneapolis-set skit targeting ICE ops amid protests…….. pic.twitter.com/RGlHXuBLZP
— The scoop stateside (@ScoopStateside) February 1, 2026
Then “Weekend Update” poured more gasoline on the fire. Colin Jost mocked the reported decision to send Homan in to calm things down (“like trying to quit cocaine by taking up crack”) and went hard at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, tying her comments on the Alex Pretti shooting to the infamous story from her memoir in which she described shooting her misbehaving dog. The punch line: she would “open fire, even if you’re a good boy.”
So no, this was not a night of gentle satire. This was SNL using a milestone episode to plant a flag.
The Take
SNL has always dipped into politics, but this wasn’t a dip. This was a cannonball into a pool that’s already boiling.
On one level, the choice makes sense. You can’t hit episode 1,000 and pretend the country isn’t arguing about immigration, policing and who gets to feel safe. Comedy has always loved power when it’s misbehaving, and ICE is practically a case study in controversial power.
But there’s a razor’s edge here. We’re not talking about dusty history. According to the reporting, you’ve got recent deaths during immigration operations, active investigations, and families still grieving. Turning that into a cold open is like trying to do couples therapy in front of a live studio audience: sure, you might get a breakthrough, but you’re definitely getting backlash.
The sketch clearly wanted to say: this is what happens when you hire rage and forget training. That line about “you hired a bunch of angry, aggressive guys, gave us guns and didn’t train us” is the mission statement of the whole bit. The joke isn’t just on ICE, it’s on the system that built them that way.
Where things get even spikier is the Kristi Noem material. Bringing up her own memoir confession about shooting her dog and tying it to a disputed shooting of a citizen is brutal, even by “Weekend Update” standards. It’s legally careful – they quote what an initial review reportedly shows and what she previously wrote about herself – but emotionally, it’s designed to make viewers wince.
I’d argue that’s the point. SNL isn’t pretending to referee the culture war anymore; it’s clearly choosing a side. If you remember the days when the edgiest political joke on TV was Chevy Chase tumbling down the stairs as Gerald Ford, this probably feels like whiplash. Today’s show is more “rage sketch with punch lines” than “punch line with a little politics.”
Is that bad? Depends on what you want from late-night. If comedy, for you, is a pressure valve, this kind of thing can feel like the news shouting at you with better lighting. If you see comedy as a bullhorn for calling out power, this is the show doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
The bigger truth: SNL knows outrage keeps people talking on Sunday morning. And with a 1,000th-episode spotlight, staying safe might have been the riskiest move of all.
Receipts
Confirmed (as reported and on-air):
- SNL’s 1,000th episode opened with a cold open about ICE operations in Minneapolis, featuring Pete Davidson as Tom Homan and a cast of bumbling ICE agents, as described in a Feb. 1, 2026 U.S. newspaper report and reflected in the broadcast itself.
- The cold open included references to Jeffrey Epstein-related document releases and a joke about a reported arrest of Don Lemon tied to immigration reporting.
- “Weekend Update” featured Colin Jost mocking the reported decision to send Homan into Minneapolis and directly criticizing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, including a callback to her memoir story about shooting her dog.
Reported / Not independently verified here:
- Details of the ongoing ICE operations in Minneapolis, including the reported killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good during immigration enforcement actions, and the status of related investigations.
- The specifics of Don Lemon’s reported arrest in connection with his coverage of immigration enforcement, which are mentioned as context for the joke.
- Exact wording and scale of online backlash on X; quoted viewer reactions come from the same Feb. 1, 2026 news report.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you’ve dipped in and out of SNL over the decades, here’s the quick refresher. The show has always flirted with politics – from Chevy Chase falling over as President Ford in the 1970s, to Dana Carvey’s George H. W. Bush, to Tina Fey and the “I can see Russia from my house” era, to Alec Baldwin’s Trump years.
ICE, created after 9/11, has long drawn fire for aggressive tactics and high-profile raids, especially in immigrant communities. It’s become shorthand in pop culture for hard-line immigration enforcement. Kristi Noem, meanwhile, first gained national attention as a Republican governor and then, according to more recent reporting, moved into a top homeland security role. Her own memoir story about killing her dog over bad behavior sparked huge outrage and late-night jokes well before this episode.
So when you put SNL, ICE, Trump officials, Minneapolis protests and that dog story in one broadcast? You’re basically stacking every political tripwire you can find and dancing on it.
What’s Next
What happens now is less about one sketch and more about how SNL wants to define this era of the show.
We’ll likely see:
- More political cold opens tied directly to the fallout from the Minneapolis operations, especially if investigations or court cases move forward.
- Responses from the real players – whether that’s officials at Homeland Security, Tom Homan himself, or Kristi Noem commenting on being compared (again) to someone who shoots a “good boy.”
- Audience sorting in real time: viewers who are over political comedy may peel away, while fans who want sharper, angrier satire will lean in harder.
- Cast and writer moves as they see which lines land, which ones just spark boycotts, and how far they can push this version of the show.
Either way, SNL used its 1,000th episode to send a clear message: it’s not stepping back from the culture war. If anything, it just moved its desk to the front lines.
Your turn: Do you think late-night shows like SNL should keep diving into live-wire issues like ICE crackdowns and controversial officials, or are you ready for them to give politics a rest and just be funny?
Sources (reported and broadcast, Feb. 1, 2026): SNL episode 1,000 as aired on NBC; contemporaneous U.S. newspaper coverage by James Gordon describing the ICE sketch, viewer reaction and political context.
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