Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” has led the administration’s far-reaching, heavily publicized deportation campaign. He has led a decades-long career in law enforcement and border security and has multiple ties Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint for Trump’s second term.
Homan has led the White House’s campaign to remove undocumented immigrants; more than 56,000 migrants have been detained by ICE across the country over the past eight months, according to NBC News. The administration has set an annual goal of deporting 1 million people.
Homan has faced harsh, bipartisan criticism for his treatment of undocumented immigrants. Many reports have surfaced since January of extensive human rights violations and even a number of deaths within detention facilities. Meanwhile, the small, internal watchdog agencies tasked with keeping an eye on such centers have been defunded and new facilities — like “Alligator Alcatraz” — are being built to expand detention and deportation efforts.
Trump and Homan have recently launched attacks against sanctuary cities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago — even noting that mayors or governors that don’t cooperate with ICE missions should be targeted for arrest.
Who is he?
Thomas Homan, 63, is in his second stint as the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He began his career in law enforcement as a police officer in West Carthage, New York, in 1983. One year later, he joined the precursor to ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and later served as a border patrol agent, beginning a long career in border protection.
Homan’s ties to Trump run deep — he has long been a champion of Trump’s immigration policies and served in Trump’s first administration, as executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations at ICE before being named the agency’s acting director.
He left ICE in 2018 and became a contributor on Fox News. He also worked on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, contributing to its section proposing deportation programs. Homan also later worked with The United West, an organization identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-Muslim hate group, to release “Defend the Border and Save Lives.” According to SPLC, Homan also met with a member of the Proud Boys multiple times to discuss deportations and immigration after Trump’s win in November 2024.
Follow the money
- Since the end of Trump’s first term, Homan has received at least $5,000 in consulting fees from GEO Group, which runs a number of for-profit immigration detention centers across the country. GEO Group, which spent $1.4 million to lobby on a range of bills affecting deportations and detentions, and its employees have long supported Trump and the Republican Party. GEO Group has also recently benefitted from a windfall of federal policy and budget allocations benefitting ICE. Congress recently passed a budget bill allocating $45 billion for building a new arsenal of ICE immigrant detention centers, building on Trump’s campaign promise to detain and deport migrants at a record pace. CoreCivic and GEO Group have already received ICE contracts, expected to be worth $180 million and $79 million respectively, once operational.
- In 2023, Homan was CEO of The America Project, a group founded by Overstock founder Patrick Byrne and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The group engages in election denialism and other conspiracy theories.
- He also reportedly founded Homeland Strategic Consulting LLC, which received “tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts” and might have misused its nonprofit status to aid Homan’s political career.
- Homan is also involved with two non-profit organizations that faced scrutiny for inconsistencies in their tax filings, the Border911 Foundation and Border911 Inc. Border911 also used inflammatory language about border migration, calling it an “invasion,” a term Homan has echoed since taking on his role as border czar.
- The Office of Government Ethics has not released Homan’s financial disclosure report and OpenSecrets’ requests for documentation have not been answered.
Why it matters
- Homan has championed the use of detention centers in lieu of the Biden administration’s move towards alternatives to detention for undocumented immigrants and their families. The surge of federal money to expand detention and deportation operations will continue to be directed into private prison and detention operators.
- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has also worked to severely defund her own department, which includes ICE and watchdog agencies, just as a host of new facilities are slated to open or expand. The Trump administration has also begun to target the Flores settlement, a 1997 law that aims to protect migrant children who are detained. Homan has long supported the deportation of parents who have children born in the United States.
- ICE has also been the subject of hundreds of alleged human rights violations at affiliated detention centers across the country. One probe found more than 500 reports of “human rights abuse,” including some involving pregnant women and children, as well as the refusal of access to representation such as attorneys while in custody. “We’re not going to violate anybody’s human rights. We’re not to violate anybody’s civil rights. If someone’s not allowed to call their attorney — give me an example,” Homan said in an interview with The New York Times in June.
- The Trump administration has also sanctioned and cracked down on lawyers offering pro-bono representation or who have lodged lawsuits against planned deportations, calling such suits “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.”
This article is part of a series examining the role political money has played in the careers of President Donald Trump’s nominees for executive branch positions.
