EXCLUSIVE: Tom Homan Reveals Next Targets and How Many Missing Immigrant Children Have Been Found

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW] In this episode, I’m sitting down with Tom Homan. A career law enforcement officer, he’s served as a police officer, border patrol agent, federal investigator, and acting ICE chief, and worked under six presidents from both sides of the aisle.

Now as the White House border czar, he’s facilitating the most aggressive transformation of immigration enforcement that America has ever seen.

Monthly deportations have hit record highs. Enforcement officers are prioritizing high-risk offenders, with over 60 percent of arrests involving individuals with criminal convictions or active felony charges, Homan says.

And the pushback has been fierce. Homan says assaults on ICE officers are up 1,600 percent. Threats are up 6,000 percent.

We discuss: What new initiatives or priorities can we expect to see in the coming weeks and months? How is the Trump administration dealing with nationwide court injunctions? How is the administration approaching a major China-related loophole on one of its island territories? And how many unaccompanied minors that were unaccounted for in the system have since been found? How many were sex trafficked or used as forced labor?

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek:

Tom Homan, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Tom Homan:

Well, thanks for having me.

Mr. Jekielek:

So you’ve reported over 300,000 unaccompanied children, or the Office of the Inspector General, technically, has reported that they were unaccounted for. I want to find out how many have been found now and their status. Just kind of an update. This is an area of great interest to our viewers.

Mr. Homan:

Well, you know, under the Biden administration, just under a half-a-million were smuggled into the country. And HHS [U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services] was very proud of the fact they released them quickly. They weren’t in detention very long. But the problem is they released them quickly because the sponsors weren’t properly vetted. 

So out of that half a million children, they lost track of just under, I think the number is like 296, almost 300,000 children they lost track of. When they say, lost track of, they weren’t responding to call-ins, they weren’t responding to any sort of communications. We weren’t hearing from them, they were supposed to be checking in, and they weren’t looking for them, which is just amazing. 

So when President Trump came into office, the first day President Trump called me and asked me to come back, he asked me to do three things: secure the border, run a deportation operation, and find these kids. That’s three things he told me he wanted me to oversee. So we started looking for 300,000 children, and I told President Trump on that phone call, securing the border, no problem. We’ve done it before, we can do that again. Mass deportation, no problem, because we’ve got a target-rich environment, due to the millions of people who came across. We can get that done. 

The children would be the most difficult because they will be tough to find. We would have to count on the digital footprint of the sponsors and the information the sponsors provided, which we know wasn’t good. We can find you; we can find me. We own homes, we own cars, and we have credit cards. We can find us because we all have a digital footprint. Children don’t. 

So, when we finally got back in, we started pulling the information, looking at these kids. A lot of the information—the addresses, supermarkets, parking lots, and churches—was incorrect. A lot of the IDs presented had wrong names, so we knew it would be difficult. But under President Trump’s leadership, as of last week, we’ve found just over 157,000 children. We have more to find. Over 20 have died, some from natural causes, some from drug overdoses, and some from violence. So, we still have about 140,000 to find. 

These children that we’re still looking for have aged out; they’re 18 or 19 years old. But as I told the President, just because they’re 18 and 19 doesn’t mean they’re not in forced labor or sex trafficking. So, we’re going to keep running down every one of these leads until we find them. And when we finish with all the leads we have, we’re going to do it again. So, we’re not giving up. President Trump has promised that we’re going to look at this until the last day of the administration, and the American people can have my word that we’re going to do that. There was this nine-year-old girl that you spoke with who was trafficked on her way in.

Mr. Jekielek:

And I just, do you have any, have you spoken with her again? Can you tell me any more about her?

Mr. Homan:

In all the border work I’ve done in 40 years, I’ve talked to many victims of smuggling and trafficking. There was one time I spoke to little girls who were sexually assaulted making that journey. That was many years ago. I never forgot about her. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. You don’t come across the border without approval and paying off the cartels. 

Cartels control plazas. If an alien smuggling group is going to run a bunch of aliens through a specific plaza, they better have permission and they better pay the fee. So, a lot of women and children are sexually assaulted making that journey. The last study I saw, several nonprofits did studies and said that up to 31 per cent of women who make that journey get sexually assaulted. And that’s 31 per cent of women that admitted it. So, you both know the number is probably higher, right? 

But the nine-year-old will go, yes, it broke my heart. That little girl is never going to be the same again, and that stuck in my mind. There are a lot of things that stuck in my mind over 40 years that make me who I am today and why I fight so hard. I just left an event, victims of crime, including angel moms and dads.

Angel moms and dads are the number one reason I came back the second time out of retirement for President Trump. That’s why I fight, because I’ve seen some terrible things in my career. I’ve seen a lot of suffering. But children, and that’s why I fight so hard. 

And that nine-year-old girl from years ago is the reason I fight hard, because I know terrible things happen on that border. I know there are a lot of sexual assaults as a part of the fee for them to cross that border. So, it’s something I’m deeply concerned with, and one of the reasons I fight so hard when I’m still around. At 65-years-old, I’m still in the game. I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

Mr. Jekielek:

But it hasn’t worked out somehow.

Mr. Homan:

Well, President Trump asked me twice to come. You know, I retired for the first time as the ICE [U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement] director, and the day of my retirement party, and it was January, I had a great retirement party, with hundreds of people there. It was the saddest day of my life. And I say that because when you carry a badge and gun for 30 years, it’s part of who you are. 

And I knew that day was over. I was no longer going to be a special agent. I was no longer going to be the ICE director. I was going to be civilian Tom Homan. So, it was a bad day. I had my wife, I had my family with me. At the end of the ceremony, I was actually shaking hands with people, people that were coming. 

And my chief of staff, who was my chief of staff, said I had an emergency phone call in my office. My empty office, because I already boxed my stuff up; they were sitting in my garage. This is on a Friday, because I already signed a contract with a company, so I was going to start my new job Monday. So, my office was empty. 

I went up and took a phone call, and it was the secretary John Kelly. And he says, President Trump would like you to stay and run the agency, because I was third in command at the time. And I told him it was bad timing, because I had just retired. He advised me, not officially, because he hadn’t signed the paperwork; it was on his desk. 

So I asked for the weekend to talk to my family about it, and Monday I just said, yes, let’s do it. So I came back. The second time, Trump 47, he called me. I think I was the first guy he called. At least that’s what he told me. 

Again, I was out to dinner with my wife, sitting in a restaurant, some phone’s sitting on the table, it rang, and she looked at it and said, POTUS. And she looked at me and said, oh no, he wants you to go back. And I went outside, took the phone call, and we had the conversation I told you about. He said, come back and help me do these three things. 

And I didn’t hesitate because I wanted to be in the fight. After watching four years of what they did to the most secure border in the history of this nation and unsecured it on purpose, which caused massive fentanyl killing Americans, caused sex trafficking all time high, record number of no inspected terrorists arrested at the border, I couldn’t wait to come back. And that’s when President Trump asked me, I didn’t hesitate, came back.

Mr. Jekielek:

Going back to the angel parents, just for the benefits of the viewers that might not know, these are parents who have lost children to illegal aliens in some way. Tell me, you just came from an event, you told me.

Mr. Homan:

Todd Blanch, Attorney General, held an event for victims of crime. And a lot of families there, well, they had testimony for four or five victims. And I think three of the victims were parents who buried their children because they were killed by an illegal alien. A lot of Angel families were in the audience. I recognized many. I’ve met and I’m friends with them. 

I just had lunch with Laken Riley’s parents last week down in Georgia. So I’m very connected to them. That’s the number one reason I fight so hard. So we just had an event. And you know what? No matter how many times you hear their stories, you can’t absorb it without emotion. Because my worst nightmare is to bury one of my children, and they’ve been through that. 

What makes it so difficult is that it was a totally different experience—a preventable crime if they weren’t here, if the border wasn’t wide open, if we didn’t have sanctuary cities. Many of the victims, these Angel moms and dads, had their child’s life taken by an illegal alien who was arrested in a sanctuary city. Rather than calling ICE and honoring our detainer that we placed with them, they released them back to the street, and they killed their child. So it was difficult days. 

Every time I do this, it’s difficult to hear those stories, but the reason I’m late to this interview by 45 minutes, is because they want pictures, they want a hug, and I won’t leave the event until I talk to every Angel mom and dad in that room. They deserve the attention of this administration, and I give them all the attention I can give them. I promise them, I promise every one of them today, that I’m going to fight for them, I’m going to keep fighting for them. Even after I retire, I’ll find something when I leave the administration to help them. I’ll be involved in some way, somehow, because they live my nightmare.

Mr. Jekielek:

Now, of course, I know that one of your priorities was to deport the criminal illegal aliens, detain and deport. At least at the beginning, that was the case. Just to finish up this question around the children that were trafficked, what about these sponsors of unknown sponsors? Presumably, some of them are criminals. Presumably, some of them are traffickers. What can you tell us about that?

Mr. Homan:

The ones that we ask can prove their involvement in trafficking or forced labor or misrepresentation. A lot of these were multiple sponsors. You can have a sponsor who had 22 children. How the hell did that happen, right? And when we go find them, most kids aren’t there anymore because they’ve been sold off to somebody else. 

We hold these people, we can prove a case against them, we hold them accountable, and we prosecute them. But not all these children, like, say, the majority of the children, were perfectly safe. They’re with their parents, hiding out because they didn’t want the immigration consequences. But many, too many, were victims of sexual assault, trafficking, and forced labor.

Mr. Jekielek:

Do you have a sense of how many were trafficked of these that you know?

Mr. Homan:

I don’t have the numbers offhand. HSI [homeland security investigations] is in charge of that, but you know, one’s too many. But there have been numerous victims. We found some working, not going to school, working on chicken ranches or, you know, marijuana grow farms, or forced into labor, not being paid, not going to school, being sold off. And we rescued many victims of sex trafficking. They’re involved with pornographic movies and being sold for sex. In the greatest country on Earth, it’s hard to believe this stuff happens here, but it does. It’s a priority of this administration. 

When President Trump came in, he said, we’re going to do mass deportations. He said his instructions were, we’re going to prioritize the public safety threats and national security threats. And I’ve been saying that for almost two years, because some people say, well, you’ve got to arrest illegal aliens too. We know that just because you prioritize a public safety threat doesn’t mean you forget about everybody else. 

But if you have a child predator here and someone that overstayed their visa here, you can get the child predator first, then you get the other person. Right now, the number is about 60/40; 64 percent of everybody we arrest is a criminal. The other 40 percent are non-criminals. I like that percentage. I would rather have more criminals than non-criminals because they’re the biggest threat to our communities and our neighborhoods. So, I like that. I like that. That makes sense.

Mr. Jekielek:

So, just to be clear, about 64 per cent are people who have committed criminal acts, and the others are either overstays.

Mr. Homan:

Our definition of criminals is having a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges, which means we found them in a jail, which most likely means they’re not a choir boy. If they’re arrested for a crime or convicted of a crime, we classify them as criminals. The other 40 per cent are non-criminals, but a lot of those non-criminals are gang members who don’t have a criminal history or have not yet been charged with a crime. Some are traffickers. They’ve not yet been prosecuted. 

So, I like the mix. I think that’s good. People say, you need to arrest more non-criminals. Well, we are. There’s a lot of false information out there. People want us to do more. I want to do more. I mean, in June of this year, ICE arrested more illegal aliens than at any time in the history of the agency. They broke a historic record in June. In July, they broke June’s record. In August, they broke both months’ records. So, in August, they set a brand new historic record. Damn good. 

So, they’re breaking records every month. We are arresting a record number of illegal aliens. And like I said, the percentage is about 60/40. So, we’re making a difference. And I want more, but we have a few thousand more that are coming through the academy who can be put on the street. 

But people need to understand we’re hitting a record number of arrests, historic records, despite the fact that we have over 100 nationwide injunctions filed by radical judges that don’t want to just detain and deport people. We have over 87,000 habeas cases where some radical judge says you can’t detain this person. Then, of course, they get released. Now, we’ve got to find them all over again. Sanctuary cities, of course, make it more difficult. 

So, despite the sanctuary cities, despite the habeas cases, despite the nationwide injunctions put in place by radical judges, ICE is still breaking historical records. As the DOJ [U.S. Dept. of Justice] continues to sue sanctuary cities, I’m confident we win, and that’s going to open up the aperture more. As we bring a couple more thousand agents online, it’s going to increase. So the numbers are historic now. I expect bigger numbers next year.

Mr. Jekielek:

I mean, this is also in the context Secretary Mullin just talked about a 1,600 per cent increase in violence against ICE operators.

Mr. Homan:

A 1,600 per cent increase of actual assaults. The threats against ICE officers are up over 6,000—1,600 are actual attacks. The threats are up to 6,000. Vehicle assaults are up 1,300 per cent. We’re using vehicles as weapons. And I blame a lot of that on the misinformation being fed by some media to the American people. It’s constant lies, and I don’t use that term lightly. 

Lies. ICE is arresting five-year-olds. ICE is arresting people in churches. ICE arrests somebody at a hospital or an elementary school. Since President Trump’s been in the Oval Office, I dare anybody to give me one case, give me a name and a place where ICE has arrested anybody in an elementary school. It hasn’t happened. Inside of a hospital—never happened. Inside of a church—never happened. The only people that violated the sanctity of a church were Don Lemon and that group, right? So, but they keep saying it. 

Let’s talk about Delaney Hall, up in New Jersey. The governor, the elected mayor, members of Congress said aliens are being mistreated in that facility, which causes protests, which causes violence outside the facility. They said there are hunger strikes. People weren’t getting their medicine, being abused. It all started because ICE arrested a father that went to the store to buy diapers for an infant child. We locked him in there, and he started all the protests. 

I went up there unannounced. I sat in the cafeteria with the aliens and ate the same thing they ate. There’s nothing wrong with that food. A hunger strike. There are some aliens that weren’t eating in the cafeteria because they’re buying food out of the commissary, which is your right to do. No one missed a meal. No one was on a hunger strike. No one was missing their medication. 

And the person, the victim that people called the alien a victim was just buying diapers for his infant child was arrested. It was all a lie. We took custody of him in a county jail because he was there under charges of domestic violence. But the false story is being pushed by the media.

Just lately, there was the shooting in Austin. They said, oh, he was here legally. He had a work permit. He’s just delivering food. He was one of those drivers that delivered food, and we shot him in the back, and he’s crippled, and we won’t give him medical attention. No. 

He was an illegal alien with a final order from a judge that said he must be deported. We were trying to arrest him and deport him. He fled. We had lights and sirens. He knew what he was doing. He fled. And, you know, he was shot. But these constant lies—I obviously see some future political benefit of attacking ICE and lying about ICE. I think it’s going to help in the future election. 

I spend most of my time on media interviews shutting down the lies. Is ICE perfect? No, you know, it’s a 30,000-man organization; mistakes will be made. But when mistakes are made, they’re held accountable. But to vilify them every day for simply enforcing the law, and they’re getting vilified by members of Congress.

I’ve told Congress this from day one. If you think ICE is a Nazi group for enforcing immigration law, what does that make Congress? You wrote the law, and we are enforcing laws you wrote. I said at the beginning of this administration, about the third month in this administration, all the hateful rhetoric was coming out. And I said at the time, and I wish I was wrong, that if the hateful rhetoric continues, there’s going to be violence and there’s going to be bloodshed. And sure enough, we’ve seen it. 

Talk about a sniper in Dallas trying to shoot agents; they shoot into a band of aliens and kill two of them. Outside of Dallas, a group attacks one of our ICE facilities and shoots a cop in the neck. So I blame a lot of this on the hateful rhetoric being pushed by not only mayors and governors, but members of Congress. And I’ll keep calling that out. 

I think that’s one of the reasons when you compare ICE to the Nazis and what the Nazis did, that emboldens some people on the far Left and the ones who already had a loose screw. It emboldens them. It encourages them to take action. I wish they would stop. 

If the hateful rhetoric was stopped, the masks would come off. If the hateful rhetoric was stopped, there’d be less tragedy. I truly believe that because now people are emboldened regarding ICE because they hear ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency. ICE are Nazis. They’re not really cops. 

So now people are not complying with them. ICE pulls them over. They’ll either run, or they’ll ram them with a car because they feel like they don’t have to comply with ICE. They’re hearing from members of Congress that ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency. You’ve got people like AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] having team meetings on the internet, telling people—she calls it educating people on their rights. She’s teaching people how not to comply with ICE. 

So, with all this going against ICE, I am not surprised at the tragedies. It’s unfortunate. I don’t want to see anybody hurt. I don’t want to see the officers hurt. I don’t want to see the alien targets hurt. I just want to enforce the law. But until this hateful rhetoric stops, it isn’t over when it comes to violence.

Mr. Jekielek:

How would you respond to someone that, for example, understands that this Nazi moniker is some sort of gross hyperbole or whatever, and is unhappy with how many illegal immigrants are in the country, but would say something like, well, shooting someone just because they’re fleeing, that seems like excessive force for this kind of an enforcement policy.

Mr. Homan:

They don’t shoot like they’re fleeing. The policy is you don’t use deadly force unless your life is in danger or the life of a third party is in danger. That’s when ICE can use lethal force. They are given tools to try to get the person to comply without the use of deadly force. There’s a continuum. They’re trained on the continuum of what force to use to make that person comply. They just talked about ICE ordering gloves that would give electric shock. 

People had a fit about it. They’re a taser, a handheld taser. Law enforcement across the country carries tasers. That’s just one more tool to make someone compliant so agents don’t have to go zero to 100 and resort to shooting, and they can use the least force necessary to get compliance. Whether it’s a taser, whether it’s hands-on, the last thing we want to do is go to a gun.

And like I say, again, the agency isn’t innocent. We’ve had a couple of agents who are indicted for lying about incidents, and they’ve been indicted. So, one of the first things I did when I got to Minneapolis was increase the internal affairs staff to make sure people who aren’t doing things right get held accountable. People said that we’re not doing things right. And when we don’t do things right, we need to show the American people we’re holding these people accountable. So that’s what we’re trying to do.

Mr. Jekielek:

You know, and just to your point, a pretty significant number of the people these agents have to go after have a criminal record or are thought to be criminals by law and other law enforcement. I mean, it feels like a pretty dangerous operation.

Mr. Homan:

I’ve been an ICE agent. I was a border patrol agent. I was a police officer, became a border patrol agent, then I was an ICE agent for many years. It’s a dangerous job. And for any member of Congress who wants to attack them, I just want to put them in that position. 

I tell you what, I’ll give you a badge, I’ll give you a gun, I’ll put a Kevlar vest on you. I want you to go arrest that guy who doesn’t want to be arrested, who’s not going to let you arrest him, and he’s wanted for manslaughter. He’s a gang member. He’s with MS-13 or, you know, 18th Street gang. Go arrest him. How many have the guts to go do that?

Mr. Jekielek:

I don’t have the guts to do that.

Mr. Homan:

So, you know, it’s already a dangerous job, but with the threats as high as they are, the threat is dangerous. There have been more shootings than any time I can remember in the history of the agency. And I say, again, it’s a lot of hateful rhetoric feeding the frenzy, making people think, you know, ICE agents are the bad guys. You have a right not to comply. And when they don’t comply and something happens, right away they attack the ICE agent, which just emboldens more noncompliance. 

Again, I want to be clear because people have mixed my words up on purpose, saying, homeless, you don’t comply. You should be killed. I never said that, and never will. I’m just saying, if you are non-compliant, if you would simply comply, there’d be fewer tragedies. You can take judicial action, you can sue, do whatever you want to do. 

But I know if I get pulled over by law enforcement, I’m going to comply. That’s the way it should be. If you think that stop or that interrogation or that meeting was unconstitutional or a violation of your civil rights, then take action. But you don’t comply, I just think that’s a dangerous road to go down.

Mr. Jekielek:

It just sounds like you have a pretty high-pressure job, given everything. That’s an easy way to put it. Do you have a day that you remember that was particularly, like a particularly rough one?

Mr. Homan:

Yeah, every time I talk to an injured mom and dad, it’s a bad day. I’m a dad. I have two boys. My worst nightmare is burying a child. And when you talk to an injured mom and dad whose hearts are broken, life will never be the same. And you couldn’t help them because the government failed them because they didn’t secure the border. The government failed them because New York City decided not to honor our detainers and released criminals to the street. It’s just, their child is dead because the system failed them. Either the federal government, the city government, or the state government failed them. 

Like I said earlier, a lot of these angel moms and dads, the murderers of their children, were in custody before they committed that act. But because of sanctuary policy, because of politics, it’s back on the street. I had lunch with Laken Riley’s parents last week. The person who murdered their daughter—listen to the videotape—she fought for her life for 17 minutes. Listen to that tape. She fought for every breath. That little girl didn’t want to die. She fought hard. 

Imagine being her parents. That guy was in custody in New York City for a crime, and he was released rather than calling ICE. That’s a bad day. It’s a bad day when I know more officers get hurt for doing the job. I get a lot of bad days, but I get a lot of good days because I think when ICE is out there making a record of criminal aliens, we’re making this country safer. I think neighborhoods are safer. The crime rate is at an all-time low because of President Trump’s leadership. 

And I give President Trump all the credit because his leadership made this happen. His leadership gave us the most secure border in the history of this nation. His leadership has given us a record number of criminal arrests in this country. His leadership has given ICE the tools, the money, and the funding they need to enforce immigration law across this country. His leadership is why there’s a negative net migration. It is saving thousands of lives every month on that border. 

Under Joe Biden, 4,000 aliens died making that journey. A quarter million Americans died from fentanyl. Sex trafficking was sky-high. Because President Trump has 97 per cent fewer people coming, how many women aren’t being raped? How many children aren’t dying? How much sex trafficking isn’t happening? How much fentanyl is not going to come across that border? That’s a good day every day. We win a lot. 

But when you find out about another citizen burying their child because of an illegal alien, that’s a bad day. You don’t feel like you won very much. So we have good days and bad days. 

Overall, I’m proud to work for this president. I think he’s the greatest president in my lifetime. People attack me for saying that. I’m a border guy. I’m an immigration guy. I’m a cop. No one’s done it better than President Trump. Put the numbers on the board. 

I’ve worked for six presidents and 11 administrations. No one’s done it better than Trump. The numbers prove it. The data proves it. So I’m happy to be here, working here. I take a lot of hate. I get hit pieces on me every day. I don’t care. It’s gas in my fire. I’m here for the right reasons.

Mr. Jekielek:

So, you were saying that you had record removals recently, increasing record removals over the last few months. You think you’re on track for another record this month?

Mr. Homan:

Yes, I think we’re on track for record deportations. I think this month will see the highest number of deportations in one month we’ve ever seen. There are some naysayers, others saying, you’re fudging the numbers. You’re not fudging the numbers. 

Every day when my security detail picks me up at my home, I sit in the backseat and read 22 pages of data on what’s happened in the last 24 hours. I get a report from ICE on how many people they arrested. I get a report from ICE on how many people were deported, removed. I get a separate report from the Border Patrol on how many people they arrested at the border, how many they arrested in the interior, and how many they turned around. Border numbers aren’t added to the ICE numbers, which people like to say, the only reason you’re breaking records is they’re adding all the numbers together. 

No, Border Patrol does their numbers, ICE does their numbers. I reported, when I got there, saying ICE made a record arrest in June, July, and August; there were ICE arrests. Border numbers were never here.The data proves a record every month. And I think by the end of this year, Trump already beat Obama. 

Obama had a record of 409,000 removals in fiscal year 2012 when I was at ICE. I got a presidential rank award for distinguished service for removing that many people. The same people that gave me that presidential rank award now want to put me in jail because I’m arresting illegal aliens at record numbers under Trump. How this country has changed in the last decade. At one point, you get an award for removing illegal aliens from a Democrat president, and now the Democrats think you shouldn’t arrest anybody. 

And this is what I want people to understand. They haven’t changed a bit. You would think, after four years of historic illegal migration, where millions of illegal aliens were illegally released in this country, illegally given parole against what the statute says, you’d think they’d be ashamed that the open border caused a quarter million Americans to die from fentanyl, record sex trafficking, and a record number of uninspected terrorists being arrested.You would think they’d be ashamed and try to walk back four years. 

But they didn’t say a word. And now what are they doing? They want to abolish the agency that’s in charge of finding these people and removing them. They haven’t changed a bit. They don’t want us to remove these millions of people. They all, you know, conspire together to get into this country because they see some future political benefit from millions of people in this country. There’s no other reason you don’t want to. 

I’ve asked numerous people on the Hill, Democrats, what is the downside of a secure border? What’s the downside? Less trafficking, less alien smuggling, less sex trafficking, less non-inspected terrorists. What is the downside of having a secure border? There’s no downside to a secure border. 

What they did under Biden wasn’t incompetence; it wasn’t mismanagement. It was by design. You can’t convince me of any of the reasons. They see a future political benefit: having millions of illegal aliens sitting in sanctuary cities, whether they’ll be counted in the next census or whether they think they’re future Democratic voters. But now they’re upset because we’re out there arresting them in record numbers. 

And I truly believe they want that when the next Democratic administration comes in, they’ll award amnesty to millions of people that came in under Biden. No one’s going to convince me everything’s different because I can’t think of another reason why that would happen. Explain to me why you don’t want people entering the country when you’ve been ordered removed by a judge. Why don’t you want them removed? They haven’t changed. 

So I hope American people pay attention, because don’t forget the images of 12,000 people a day coming across the border. Don’t forget the images of young children dying of fentanyl every day, pulling infants out of the water that drowned. Don’t forget the images of Border Patrol agents giving CPR to children that the cartel threw in the river so the Border Patrol wouldn’t catch them. Don’t forget those images of 15,000 Haitians under a bridge that just walked across the border and were released. 

I don’t want Americans to forget those images because what we’re doing right now is trying to fix what happened. And we fix it by removing people who are not supposed to be here. And for those who say, you’re going beyond that, you arrested somebody that’s here for 15 years, has two years of citizenship, kids. 

Okay, so the message you want to send is: cross the border illegally, it’s a crime, but don’t worry about it. Get ordered removed by a judge, don’t worry about it. Have a U.S. citizen child, and you’re free. You get amnesty; the law means nothing to you. If that’s the message we want to send to the whole world, you’re never going to fix this.

People are still going to put themselves in harm’s way to come to the greatest nation on Earth. If you come to this country in violation of law, you cheated the system. You can call them, been here 15 years, or whatever you want. They cheated the system. They put themselves in front of the line where millions of people are taking their tests, paying their fees, doing background investigations to be a part of the greatest nation on Earth. They’re sitting in the back of the bus now because people choose to cheat the system, come across the border illegally.

I’ve said this many times and I take a lot of hate. They say, you deported that person as a UAC [unaccompanied alien child]. That’s not on me. If you’re in the country illegally and you choose to have a child, knowing that child will be a citizen, if you choose that, and that’s your decision, it’s on you. So if a parent gets ordered removed, parenting one on one: Make the decision what you want to do. Take the child with you or leave them with a relative. 

I know that sounds cruel, but the option is to allow that to happen, and more people won’t come to take advantage of that. More people die. More women and children get raped. If you want to fix the system, we have to enforce the law. Again, there’s a right way and a wrong way to come to this country. There’s a reason we have laws in this country. We need to abide by them.

Mr. Jekielek:

In addition to the removals, you also have these self-deportations or self-removals, really, and those numbers are actually quite significant.

Mr. Homan:

Deportations are actually increasing. I looked at the numbers this morning. Why are people self-deporting? Because they know right now the border is not open; there hasn’t been an illegal alien released from the border in 17 months. They know there’s no open border anymore. You come to the border, you’re going to be detained or immediately turned around. And one of the reasons we have the most secure border in the history of this nation isn’t just because we stopped catch and release; it’s because the world has seen what ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] is doing. 

We’re out enforcing the law. Apologies, we’re going to enforce the law. We’re going to prioritize public safety threats, but everybody’s on the table if you’re illegal. The world sees that. The world sees record arrests, record removals.

The message is clear: Leave on your own, then leave yourself an opportunity to come back legally. Maybe you have a U.S. citizen child or something that can petition for you someday. But if we have to go through the process of arresting you, putting you before an immigration judge, and giving you a deportation order, there are statutory bars that prevent you from coming back into this country for 20 years. So leave on your own, leave yourself an opportunity. 

A lot of people are taking advantage of that. Plus, the government gave you a check to help you get on your feet when you get down on the CBP Home app. It’s working. I think you’re going to see a record of self-removals in the next two years because ICE is out there, and they’re out there in full force.

Mr. Jekielek:

And I think it’s over a million already of those.

Mr. Homan:

Yes, DHS [U.S Dept. of Homeland Security]is putting out almost 1.8 million. I don’t see that many numbers. I go to the database, look at the database of the CBP Home app. But there are a lot of people self-deporting that aren’t reporting to the CBP Home app. They just leave, and they’re counted when they go south to the border.

Mr. Jekielek:

So that accounts for the discrepancy. I was wondering about that, yes.

Mr. Homan:

So, you know, a lot of people said, I’m just going to go home. I know there have been over 2 million self-deportations, but a lot of them are, you know, there have been studies done by independent groups that say they’re closer to two and a half million self-deported. A lot of people simply don’t use the CBP Home app; they just go home. 

I actually had a meeting with the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Troy Edgar, two weeks ago. I told him we need to have a solid number on this, so we need to, you know, bring all the forces together. We need one number to make sure that we’re being transparent. 

So it’s a record number. It’s well over a million. I know the Department of Homeland Security put out over two million, so we need to know what that number is. It’s hard because people that self-deport don’t always go through the CBP Home app. But we know we’re making record gains. You can see it.

Mr. Jekielek:

You know, one of the areas that the President has been quite interested in is challenging this birth tourism that’s, you know, in particular been used a lot by, there’s been, we’ve reported on a number of operations out of communist China to facilitate this. And of course, the SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] decided that, you know, birth tourism is off the table, but Congress can make laws. And so here we are. And the President had an executive order targeting travel and visa fraud. And so, how is that?

Mr. Homan:

Another reason why we have the most secure border in history is because we’re shutting down all the loopholes and all the fraud that’s going on. But birth tourism, I mean, to me, the biggest issue of birth tourism, first of all, it’s a driver of illegal immigration. But the bigger issue for me is a national security vulnerability. Two of the biggest abusers of birth tourism are China and Russia. So we’re going to have millions of Chinese and Russian nationals going to have the ability to vote in this country, run for office, because they’re going to be U.S. citizens. I just think it’s a national security vulnerability, and we need to address it. 

I was disappointed the Supreme Court found the way they found, but now it’s the job of Congress. If you care about our national security, you need to address this. As far as the fraudulent, all the fraud we’re uncovering, whether it’s reviewing the refugee applications. Do they really qualify for refugee status? Do they really qualify for parole? 

And one of the things I read just this morning, I looked at the numbers, we have a record number of parole denials now because we’re holding to the statute. If you want to claim asylum, you need to be escaping fear and persecution from your home government because of your race, religion, political affiliation, or participation in a specific social group like homosexual, where some countries can kill you for that. But we’re holding to the statute. 

So the denials on asylum are at an all time high, and they should be. Even five, six years ago, nine out of ten people who claimed asylum at the border ended up with the order of removal because they simply didn’t claim it. They don’t qualify for asylum. They’re coming in for a job. They’re economic migrants. I get it. 

But there’s a loophole; claim asylum, you’re going to be released. And it takes years to have a hearing. And by then, hopefully, they’re hoping someone becomes president, it’s going to give them amnesty. Same thing with TPS [Temporary Protective Status]. I’ve been doing this since 1984. I’ve seen very few TPS that were temporary. They go on and on and on. 

President Trump changed the rules. He said, look, temporary means temporary. Every refugee or every parole or every asylum seeker, we’re going to look and make sure they qualify. They’re going to go home. 

That is one of the biggest reasons we have self-removals, people leaving, because we’re stopping the fraud. We’ll go back. Letter of law, if you don’t call off, you need to go home. 

Because the millions of people that claim asylum, they’re clogging up the whole system. While there are actually a lot of people in this world who really do need our protection, they really are escaping fear and persecution, and they’re sitting in the back of the bus. Again, the asylum process was abused. It was welcomed by the Biden administration, just like the misuse of the parole policy was. 

Think about it. They were bringing 30,000 people in a month to the CHNV parole program; Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela. Do you know a lot of those people didn’t even come to those four countries? They’re already in Ecuador or a third country. They have status in another country, but they took advantage and came under that program. They didn’t even come from Cuba or Nicaragua or Haiti or Venezuela. 

So we’re reviewing all of that, and I think that’s one of the reasons President Trump has such great success with immigration. That’s why there’s a negative net migration, just because we’re simply enforcing the law.

Mr. Jekielek:

You know, that’s interesting. I’m aware of some cases of people who are actual asylum seekers but are kind of caught in these massive operations that you’re running here, right?

Mr. Homan:

Yes, she’s talking to millions of people. I mean, the court list is backed up. Another reason that, another thing the Trump administration is doing, we’re hiring record numbers of judges and speeding up hearings. We don’t want someone’s hearing to be out seven, nine years. You ought to have a hearing as quickly as possible. When you’re in detention, you get a hearing within 40 days. 

Detention could be years, so I think we detain who we can because they get a hearing more quickly because the immigration court prioritizes those in detention, which makes sense. So let’s build detention capacity so we can have these hearings quicker. And that’s what we’re doing.

Mr. Jekielek:

Just on this birth tourism, to finish that up, in the Northern Mariana Islands, I’ve actually reported on this quite a bit myself. There’s actually the one place in America where Chinese can go without a visa, the loopholes that you mentioned. I don’t know if you guys are doing anything with that specifically.

Mr. Homan:

I’m all over it. I can’t share a lot, but thank you for reporting. I actually saw that reporting. We’re on it. I’ll leave it at that. We’re on it. It’s being addressed.

Mr. Jekielek:

There was also this influx of military-aged Chinese males, many military-aged. You described it as, you know, without the coordination or approval of the Chinese government, this kind of wouldn’t have been possible. Have you been effective at removals of these sorts? How are you addressing this situation?

Mr. Homan:

Yes. First of all, we’re prioritizing what we’re looking for. We’re working very closely with the Bureau and intelligence community to find out who’s a national security threat. But yes, we’re making great progress on that. And I meant what I said. You don’t bring tens of thousands of Chinese into this country from China without the coordination of the Chinese government. It just doesn’t happen. And I truly believe that. So yes, they got a lot of attention, not from DHS, but from DOJ. So, yes, we’re on that. And I think, again, a national security issue, right? 

One of the game-changing things President Trump did, all the government’s on this. When we do immigration operations, DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration], ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms], FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], Border Patrol, ICE, we’re all out there. Now that we hired thousands more ICE officers, we need less of those. They can get back to the main mission. 

But President Trump is bringing the whole of government into this. When it comes to national security threats, all of the government is involved to this day.There’s the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Task Forces are concentrating on things like the Chinese and the others that I think pose a national security vulnerability.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, on that point, exactly, I think, as far as I’m aware at least, we had the first use of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. The DOJ removed an Afghan National. Can you tell me a bit more? Are there more in the pipeline with that?

Mr. Homan:

That’s a tool that we’re going to be using. At least in my career, you can see more of that. You can see a lot more of that. One of the greatest things President Trump did was designate terrorist groups, and designate the criminal cartels as terrorists; MS-13, TDA [Tren de Aragua], the drug cartels. Again, that brings the whole weight of the government on them. We can attack them and play the away game with them rather than playing a home game, play the away game. 

I knew President Trump was going to designate terrorists. I think at the RNC [Republican National Convention] before the election, I said on stage that if President Trump becomes president, he’s going to designate these groups as terrorist organizations. He’s going to wipe them off the face of the earth. I think we’re working toward that.

Mr. Jekielek:

You mentioned earlier that you’re hiring. I know that with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, you actually got a cash infusion. I think it’s $75 billion. That’s what I have in my notes, but that’s some good money. How are you using that?

Mr. Homan:

More technology. Overall, across DHS, we’re building more border wall faster, quicker, and cheaper because there’s so much competition. Every mile of border wall will be built by the time President Trump leaves office.

Mr. Jekielek:

And the wall, when you say border wall, that’s the full primary and secondary wall in some areas.

Mr. Homan:

Yes, every wall that we plan to build that President Trump has directed to be built will be built by the time this administration ends because they’re building it faster.And they’re building it cheaper because there’s a lot of competition on that wall. We’re sticking with the prototype. In some parts of the border, we’re using more than one technology. 

When you get to Big Bend National Park, you’ve got cliffs. There’s your wall. It clips higher than the wall, so they can’t get up that straight cliff. But buying a lot of technology, hiring officers was the biggest one, putting more boots on the ground. And with that comes cars and equipment and real estate office space. We’re building detention capacity. 

I said from day one, we need at least 100,000 beds, and we’re working toward that right now. I think we have about 77,000 in custody today, but we need more beds. If I had it my way, we’d have about 120,000 to 125,000 beds, and we’re working toward that. So, building more beds, having that detention capacity, and putting my agents on the ground are priorities. 

And technology is a big thing, with all the technology available, especially on the northern border. The southern border has the highest security we’ve ever had. Now that we have the money and the time, because the southern border is the most secure it’s ever been, I think we need to dedicate more resources to the northern border, whether it’s manpower, technology, or infrastructure.

Mr. Jekielek:

I’m super interested in this, actually. I’m Canadian. I’m hearing a lot from family and friends north of the border. But what does that look like? You’re saying you’ve secured the southern. Now you need to secure the northern. What is the threat from the northern?

Mr. Homan:

In the last three months, I’ve been to every northern border sector out there. I grew up on the northern, I grew up in a Canadian border area. I know the northern border very well, especially the northern border in New York, where I grew up, and I still have a home there. Every sector is a little bit different on the northern border. Some want more boots on the ground, others want barriers because rather than a Lake Ontario or St. Lawrence River, it’s a land barrier. They need drive-through barriers. They need some sort of border barrier. 

But they all want technology. They all want towers. They all want more drones because there are hundreds and hundreds of miles of border that you’d have to hire 100,000 Border Patrol agents, holding hands, to go across that border. So a lot of them are requesting more technology and more infrastructure, whether it’s drive-through barriers or some sort of border barrier in places that can’t be patrolled easily. More air assets. 

And one of the biggest things is cooperation with Canada. I met with Canadian officials a little over a year ago, and we had a mutual interest in stopping cross-border crime, right? Some crime goes north, some crime goes south. But, you know, if they would dedicate resources to border security, and we would dedicate more resources to border security, we can work together on that.I know there are some politics involved right now, but we’ll get beyond that. We’ll get past that. And I think we can work well with them. We have in the past. And we get real close to some agreements, like ship rider agreements, where we work together and stuff. 

So there is still a lot of work to be done, but that’s why for the next two years, I’m really concentrated on that because it’s been—I’m not going to say it’s been ignored—but you send the firemen where the biggest fire is. Now it’s the southern border, but now it’s under control. We need to start amping up the northern border because I think the northern border is a huge national security vulnerability.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, so this is exactly what I want to touch on. It’s kind of obvious to us, roughly, right, what the threats are from the south. I’ve reported on it ad nauseam. As Canadians, we just sort of imagine ourselves, you know, why do you even need a—where’s the national security risk? It’s just Canada, right?

Mr. Homan:

Canada’s immigration laws are very lax. You know that. It doesn’t take a lot to get into Canada, based on my experience and based on intelligence reports, I see national security threats can enter Canada a lot easier than they can enter the United States to come to the United States to harm us. I think drug trafficking goes both ways. 

Indian reservations on the border present a problem, and we’ve been working with them, trying to increase enforcement through the reservations. But they’re a sovereign nation amongst themselves, so it takes a lot of negotiating. 

So I think the United States and Canada both want, again, because I’ve met with them, to shut down cross-border crime because it’s not good for either country. I think we’re both concerned with shutting down the criminal element, shutting down the drugs, and illegal immigration, especially those who pose a threat to our nations.

Mr. Jekielek:

So, I mean, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. Perhaps a final thought from you as we finish?

Mr. Homan:

We’re not quitting. The media, members of Congress, can attack us all you want. Based on its promise to secure the border and enforce immigration law, that’s what we’re going to do. So it’s unfortunate the hateful rhetoric is out there, but they think we’re going anywhere. We’re not. We’re going to keep doing this job. That’s why the American people voted for President Trump in the Oval Office. 

And despite all the negative press out there, this country’s crime index is at an all-time low. It’s not all because illegal Americans—they’re not all public safety threats—but we arrested and removed hundreds of thousands of criminals from this country. That certainly had an effect on the crime rate. 

And every criminal, illegal alien we deport makes this country safer, makes our neighborhoods safer. I’m on a mission with the men and women of the border between ICE to make this country safer. And you can’t have strong national security if you don’t have border security. We need to know who’s coming in, what’s coming in, where it’s coming in, and why it’s coming in. And by the time this administration ends, we’re going to be in the best position we’ve ever been in. 

Again, today we’ve got the most secure southern border in the history of the nation, even better than Trump 45. Again, not a single illegal alien has been released in 17 months. Compare that to 12,000 a day coming across the border under Biden. Compare that to 2.7 million a year coming across the border under Biden.

Mr. Jekielek:

And just let me qualify that. You’re saying that not a single one has been released, but you have people coming across. Some of them are noticed and then they become these gotaways, but you don’t have any of those. I just want you to kind of disambiguate this for me.

Mr. Homan:

Border Patrol is not releasing them. They return right around or they’re being detained. Now, are there gotaways? Well, yes. Anybody who thinks you can cover 2,000 miles of border without a gotaway, they’re crazy. But the gotaway numbers are not even close to before. They went from thousands a day to less than 100. 

And the good thing is Border Patrol’s checkpoints are back up. They were shut down during the Biden administration, so we have northern checks. We’re getting a lot of those gotaways that got away from the border. They might get away from the border, but not get to our checkpoints. So, we’re arresting a lot of them. But think about 10,000 up to 12,000 a day under Biden, most were released in the United States.  

Now, we are releasing nobody in the United States. And we’re tracking the small group of gotaways where they come, or we’re attaching additional resources, whether it’s Department of War resources or other border patrol from other sectors coming in. So, every place we see a sieve, we’re plugging it right away.Border ever, and the data proves it.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, Tom Homan, it’s such a pleasure to have had you on.

Mr. Homan:

All right, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

This interview has been partially edited for clarity and brevity.