homan tom ice

===

trifecta

GEO GROUP HOMAN REV DOOR

SEE WATCHLIST DATABASE

see fox

see lawfare trump

kirk roadshow fla

see pjt 2025 cooch wrote?

pow baby jail, mass deport 2025 cruel intimidation racist FUENTES thus fASCISM

child sex trafficking // quanon, gives cover from baby jail?

fox did // trumpiSta rubber chicken circuit? rod of iron wackos

BAK

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HE WAS SIDELINED BY HARDCORE MILLER LEWANDOWSKI, RECYCLED POST ALEX PRETTI MURDER

VARSITY, JV DRUNK SOFTBALL TEAM CPB BOVINO?

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RWW

07/10/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Melissa Gira Grant @ The New Republic: ICE Is Hoping You Won’t Notice the Man Agents Killed In Texas

The administration may have changed its P.R. strategy for Trump’s mass deportation campaign. The violence hasn’t changed at all.

Edgar Sandoval and Hamed Aleaziz @ The New York Times: Man Killed by Federal Agent in Houston Was Not the Target of ICE Search

Officials say agents believed a passenger resembled one suspect, but the encounter quickly escalated into a fatal shooting.

Arelis R. Hernández @ The Washington Post: Migrants who saw man killed by ICE in Houston say he did not ram officers

Three men who were in the vehicle alongside Lorenzo Salgado Araujo are contesting the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting.

RWW

//

07/13/2026

Peter Montgomery

While the number of killings by ICE officers is climbing, and DHS is sending agents to intimidate American citizens over social media posts critical of ICE officials, what’s “terrifying” to the Iowa Republican Party is criticism of Trump administration border czar Tom Homan.

An email sent from “MAGA Alerts” Monday morning carried the subject line, “What happened to Tom Homan today serves as a terrifying Reminder!”

The email began ominously:

Patriot:

Your immediate attention is required.

Please confirm you are in a safe and private place to correspond, ensuring no Democrats can read the following message over your shoulder.

When you are ready, please direct your undivided attention to the following:

Readers who click through once they’re in a secure location got this message:

At 8:58 AM, local time, a national MAGA alert was placed into effect under direct orders from Executive MAGA Leadership.

Tom Homan just said something on national television that has prompted Democrats to push for his immediate forced resignation as United States Border Czar.

What Homan said—more than a month ago on the right-wing outlet Newsmax—was that Democratic officials had “sold out” the country for political power by encouraging illegal immigration. It was inflammatory rhetoric, but certainly not the first time someone in Trump world has made that kind of accusation.

The fundraising letter then claimed falsely that Democrats were “dangerously close” to forcing Homan’s removal, adding, “All efforts and resources of the Democratic Party have been directed toward seeking his resignation.” There’s no evidence of that.

After a bit more inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric, the email asks people to sign a petition defending Homan and to make a monthly contribution “to combat the Democrats’ ongoing attacks on President Trump and his administration.”

And there’s a bit of intimidation for anyone who might be hesitating:

Contributions to the email are being shared by the Republican Party of Iowa and Trump National Committee Joint Fundraising Committee.

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MMA

Right-wing media defend ICE detention center amid protests over horrible living conditions

Written by Sophie Lawton

Research contributions from John Knefel

Published 05/29/26

Right-wing media are defending the living conditions at Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in New Jersey, following reports of a detainee hunger strike sparking protests outside. In addition to repeating Department of Homeland Security talking points about the conditions, media figures have attacked protesters outside the facility, claiming the demonstrations are “performance art,” among other allegations.

According to NBC, one lawyer who represents multiple detainees said her clients at Delaney Hall “have been given expired food and meals with worms in them” and that some “have been released in recent months because they were not receiving medication or treatment for cancer, diabetes, depression and other conditions.”

The Department of Homeland Security has denied that a hunger strike is taking place at the facility, and both DHS and private prison company the GEO Group, which operates Delaney Hall, have rebuked claims that conditions are unsanitary or “subprime.” In the past year, reports of poor conditions at ICE detention centers have arisen across the country, including from locations such as Fort Bliss Army Base in Texas and the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” facility in Florida.

Right-wing news pundits and podcasters have contested such reports, repeating DHS talking points claiming that conditions in immigration detention facilities are “clean and nice” and possibly offer “better meals” and “better healthcare” than detainees had previously. Further, several have argued that it shouldn’t matter whether the detainees are on a hunger strike.

Besides defending the facilities, right-wing media figures have also attacked the protesters demonstrating outside Delaney Hall, encouraging escalation from the federal government and accusing protesters of being an “organized agitator group” that aims to stir up votes for the midterm elections and set violent criminals loose on the streets.

Right-wing media dismissed the hunger strike, defended detention center conditions, and attacked demonstrators for protesting

Fox's Greg Gutfeld said onThe Five, “Maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved.” Fox News, *The Five*, [5/28/26]

OnOutnumbered, Fox host Carley Shimkus said of federal detention centers, “Let's not make this a luxury experience on the taxpayer dollar,” and questioned, “Could this be a protest that sparked for political reasons to get this back in the news cycle?” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [5/28/26]

Fox & Friendshosts Lawrence Jones, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade made various arguments against the protests, including Eardhart’s claim that “they are mad at Trump for trying to clean up the problem” of immigrants on “the streets” by putting them “in these facilities that are clean and nice.” Kilmeade also encouraged the federal government to pull resources from New York airports, saying, “Make your choice, sanctuary cities. Do the right thing or you going to pay the price.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/28/26]

Video

Citation

From the May 28, 2026, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

The previous day onFox & Friends,Jones argued, “If they are choosing not to eat … we don't care.” Earhardt read aloud a social media post from DHS that claimed, “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. Citizens." Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [5/27/26, 5/27/26]

On Fox Business'Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, former ICE Director Jonathan Fahey claimed that “this idea that these people aren't being fed or getting medical care is completely false, or my guess it is.”Fahey then threatened the protesters with imprisonment, saying, “These people that are basically assaulting and obstructing ICE agents are going to find out the hard way — they’re going to get to compare what it's like being in a federal detention center to an ICE detention center because a lot of these people are going to get locked up. But this is all performative nonsense designed to obstruct, to disrupt.” Fox Business, *Mornings with Maria*, [5/27/26]

Newsmax host Carl Higbie said about the hunger strike: “If they want to not eat, that's on them. I don't really care. Saves us some taxpayer money, I guess.” Higbie also claimed that “half of the people in the ICE clink are probably getting better meals and probably getting better healthcare than they did before they were picked up.” Newsmax, *Carl Higbie Frontline*, [5/26/26]

Speaking with Trump “border czar” Tom Homan, Fox host Laura Ingraham said reporting of bad living conditions at Delaney Hall “doesn't pass the straight-face test” because “this is not supposed to be a spa with foot massages and facials,” and suggested that China was “behind some of this agitation” to make “America look bad.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [5/26/26]

Video

Citation

From the May 26, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Fox host Jesse Watters replied to co-host Jessica Tarlov explaining the protests at Delaney Hall: “Who cares if there's a hunger strike for criminal illegals?” Fox News, *The Five*, [5/26/26]

A panel member on Newsmax'sThe Right Squadclaimed: “If they're electing to have the hunger strike, I mean, you know, that's of their own choosing.” Newsmax, *The Right Squad*, [5/27/26]

Megyn Kelly alleged that Democrats started protesting at Delaney Hall because they “are looking for another Minneapolis” and repeated claims from DHS that “there is no hunger strike happening” and “there are no subprime conditions whatsoever, … these are all lies for attention, either by leftists or the inmates or both.” Kelly's guest, National Review's Rich Lowry, claimed, “There's probably a large element of organic nature to it [the protest] because they hate ICE and they believe the lies about ICE, that ICE is an American Gestapo.” Lowry also praised ICE for its standards of detention, saying “it's very unlikely that these horror stories [about conditions inside] are happening.” SiriusXM, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [5/26/26]

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner expressed disbelief over the protests: “What do these sanctuary districts want us to do with the illegals that we have in detention centers? Do they want us to release them just out on the streets?” Faulkner also asked “for those lawmakers showing up, I mean whose side are they really on?” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [5/28/26]

Fox host Will Cain said “this idea that these people [detained at Delaney Hall] didn't commit a crime is simply absurd. It is simply absurd.” Cain called the protesters “an organized agitator group.” Fox News, *America's Newsroom*, [5/28/26]

In an interview on Fox discussing protests at Delaney Hall, correspondent Bill Melugin asked former ICE Director Jonathan Fahey, “Do the feds need to up their posture a little bit, maybe get a little bit more aggressive?”Fahey responded, “Yeah, I think arrests need to be made.” Fox News, *America Reports*, [5/26/26]

Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino called the protests “performance art” and argued Democrats want people who “committed serious crimes in the United States” to be “released in their communities to rape, assault, burglarize your home, rob you, and potentially murder you, because they don't give a shit.” Rumble, *The Dan Bongino Show*, [5/26/26]

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AN 5 26

A former Trump administration official who was kicked out in disgrace is waging a new "civil war" against his replacement, The Daily Beast reported, and this brewing conflict could further imperil one of President Donald Trump's biggest plans.

Greg Bovino previously served as the commander-at-large for Customs and Border Protection, and became one of the biggest faces of Trump's mass deportation agenda during his first year back in the White House. He was removed from that position in January, with many observers arguing that he was taking the fall after two American citizens were shot and killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, and he later retired altogether in March.

He is not staying quiet, however, as The Daily Beast reported on Thursday that he is speaking out publicly against Trump's new leading deportation official, Tom Homan, accusing him of "political theater" by not more aggressively carrying out deportations against non-violent immigrants. In his most recent post, he took shots at Homan over his threat to send "a hell of a lot more agents to New York" in response to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's efforts to curb ICE activity in the state.

“He sounds super tough,” Bovino wrote in a post to X. “But zoom in. All he’s actually promising is rounding up the ones who already have known criminal records.” Homan, he said, “is denying reality.”

Bovino further claimed that there were "100 million" other undocumented immigrants "laughing at us," being left untouched by Homan's approach, "staying right where they are… until they rob or kill you," with mass deportations being the only solution.

"Anything less is just political theater," Bovino added.

The Daily Beast deflated that statistic from Bovino, noting that available information puts the total number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at around 14 million, to say nothing of the distinction between violent and non-violent immigrants. Other data suggests that the total number of immigrants in the U.S., across all categories, is only around 50 million.

These sorts of wildly overstated statistics about immigrants have fueled criticisms of the administration's real intentions, with some arguing that they want to end any and all immigration into the country.

"This is not the first time Bovino has gone rogue in naming Trump officials he believes are going soft on immigration," The Daily Beast's report added. "On a right-wing podcast in late April, he warned that 'some of the team may not have the fortitude that President Trump does,' singling out White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Homan. He has also stated his view that Homan and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott 'do nothing.'"

It continued: "The feud cuts to a central criticism of Trump—that his deportation drive has stalled far short of its promises. The president’s stated target is one million removals a year. The actual pace has held at roughly 1,286 a day — about 460,000 annually — according to UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project, as analyzed by researcher Austin Kocher."

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AN 2 26

A government watchdog group filed a lawsuit against the FBI, trying to get access to the tapes of the sting operation to catch a top official in Donald Trump's administration in a bribery scheme.

Tom Homan, the executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), was caught by special agents in Texas soliciting bribes for a government contract contingent on whether Trump won the 2024 election.

The undercover operation had agents posing as business executives trying to influence government contracts. Homan accepted $50,000 in cash and indicated he would help them get the contract, according to the report.

The Democracy Defenders Fund is suing the FBI for the tapes and any other files around the investigation, The Hill reported.

Homan, who Trump likes to refer to as his "border czar," was recorded accepting the cash from undercover FBI agents, though they had promised Homan $1 million. The recorded meeting involved Homan appearing to agree to help the undercover agents secure lucrative immigration-related contracts. The cash was delivered in a bag from the restaurant chain Cava.

“These documents contain vital information that the American public needs to have in order to assess both Mr. Homan’s potentially corrupt actions as well as the Department of Justice and FBI’s potentially politically motivated decision to drop the investigation into Mr. Homan, one of the Trump Administration’s appointees,” the group said in the lawsuit.

“Despite the officials’ belief in the strength of their case, after President Trump took office, the FBI absurdly decided to drop the investigation,” the suit continued.

It goes on to argue that “the strong public interest outweighs any privacy interest in the documents,” as it involves an existing official and potential government corruption.

Homan's former ICE colleague, Julian “Jace” Calderas, reportedly accepted $10,000 from the undercover FBI agents.

It led to a full Justice Department investigation, which was quashed once Trump took office and.

The Trump White House, the FBI, and the DOJ all claimed that the sting was politically motivated. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went further, calling it outright entrapment. They also denied that he accepted the bribe in a press statement.

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PARK ROSE

PERMACULT AFTER DRAWDN MIGRants hidden in neighbor hse

an 2 26

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an 2 26

President Donald Trump's administration rapidly withdrawing federal agents from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was done to prevent Minnesota officials from obtaining federal records.

That's according to a new court filing the Trump administration submitted Thursday to U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Politico legal correspondent Josh Gerstein tweeted a link to the filing, noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had "fortuitous timing" behind the recent announcement that the DHS was ending "Operation Metro Surge."

The DHS' filing alleges that the State of Minnesota and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) want to go on a "fishing expedition" to obtain records about federal immigration enforcement operations in the Gopher State. The administration argued against Minnesota's motion for expedited discovery by pointing to Thursday's announcement by White House immigration advisor Tom Homan that all federal agents had been pulled out of Minneapolis.

"The unjustified nature of Plaintiffs’ request becomes even more apparent in the light of today’s announcement that Operation Metro Surge will conclude because of the significant progress that has been made in arresting public safety threats as well as the increased cooperation from state and local authorities," the filing read. "This significant development undercuts any need for this case to proceed on an expedited schedule at all ... the Court should deny plaintiffs' motion."

Homan's announcement that he was withdrawing agents from Minnesota's largest city comes after weeks of sustained and escalating protests in the wake of federal agents killing U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And Homan's claim of lowering violent crime is questionable, given that the Minneapolis-St. Paul area saw a "drastic decline in murders" between 2024 and 2025, according to Axios.

Additionally, Minnesota Public Radio reported in October that crime in the Minneapolis area has been on a steady decline since 2020 and 2021. The drop in murders, carjackings, robberies and homicides took place well before the Trump administration deployed federal agents to Minneapolis in January.

Following Homan's announcement, MS NOW host Mika Brzezinski argued that the "public is safer in Minneapolis if [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] gets out" of the city, given agents' pattern of shooting, tear-gassing and pepper-spraying citizens.

"[T]hey didn't go after the worst of the worst," Brzezinski said. "They say they are now — and in a condescending way — say that Minnesota's finally working with them to go into the prisons. No, you are cowering away with your tail between your legs and going toward the prisons."

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intercept gmail 2 26

Uptick in Abductions”: ICE Ramps Up Targeting of Minneapolis Legal Observers

Ryan Devereaux

In one 30-minute stretch, three legal observers were arrested — as Trump’s border czar Tom Homan calls on locals to “end the resistance.”

texas “Antifa Cell” Terror Trial Takes On Tough Questions About Guns at Protests Against ICE

Matt Sledge

After a cop got shot, Prairieland ICE protesters face terrorism charges. Will Alex Pretti’s killing sway the jury?

Google Fulfilled ICE Subpoena Demanding Student Journalist’s Bank and Credit Card Numbers

Jessica Washington

Amandla Thomas-Johnson didn’t know how much information ICE requested in a subpoena until months later. Google never gave him a chance to fight it.

Pam Bondi Is Pushing Death Sentences for People Spared by Her Predecessor

Liliana Segura

Trump’s AG is ramping up death penalty prosecutions, targeting defendants previously told they wouldn’t face execution.

By Slashing Foreign Aid, Trump Is Fueling the Spread of HIV in Uganda

Steven W. Thrasher, Afeef Nessouli

Reporting from Uganda, The Intercept saw how Trump’s effort to slash foreign aid is encouraging the transmission of HIV.

NY Democratic House Candidate Works for Palantir Partners Pushing AI Border Surveillance](https://join.theintercept.com/go/83981?t=25&utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=11984%2E2483502%2EKkmb4v)

Akela Lacy

A former Biden national security adviser hoping to unseat Mike Lawler consults for two defense tech firms that work with Palantir.

Read More → (https://join.theintercept.com/go/83981?t=26&utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=11984%2E2483502%2EKkmb4v)

AN 2 26

Donald Trump may appear to be retreating from his operations in Minnesota, but according to an analysis from The i Paper, it is only a small move, and he remains committed to a "bigger and more sinister" plan for the coming elections.

On Wednesday, Tom Homan, Trump's leading adviser on border security and immigration matters, announced that 700 federal agents from ICE and CBP would be withdrawing from Minnesota. This followed weeks of a massive deportation operation in the state's Twin Cities that terrorized and harassed residents, and resulted in two U.S. citizens getting killed by federal agents on camera. The ongoing operation has been widely credited with further tanking public approval of federal immigration officers, and Trump's overall handling of the issue.

Despite this move, political reporter James Ball, writing for The i Paper on Thursday, said this was a relatively small reduction in force, as there were 3,000 agents deployed to the state to begin with. Reports from residents on the ground in the Twin Cities have also indicated that ICE and CBP tactics have not changed much, even as the Trump administration built the narrative of softening its approach.

Ball further argued that no matter what Trump is doing about his immigration operation in Minnesota, he remains committed to a much more worrisome plot involving these federal immigration officers: using them to interfere with future elections and cling to power.

"There are signs, too, of a bigger and more sinister plan in motion than simply using the machinery of the federal government to ramp up deportations," Ball wrote. "More than one figure close to Trump has connected these ICE raids to bids by the President and the Republican machinery around him to cling on to power at the midterms and other future elections."

He continued: "Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, appeared to give this game away in a letter to Minnesota’s Governor, Tim Walz, in which she seemingly demanded access to the state’s voter records, asking for the power to purge voters she saw as ineligible. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are managed by the states, not the federal government."

This letter from Bondi was followed this week by comments the president made during an appearance on a right-wing podcast, in which he asserted that elections ought to be "nationalized" in certain states, raising alarms among many lawmakers and experts that he intends to go further with his desire to control the outcomes of future elections.

Steve Bannon, the former Trump aide who maintains a prominent voice in MAGA politics, also said this week that the administration plans to deploy ICE agents to polling locations in upcoming elections. He characterized this idea as an effort to prevent election rigging — an echo of Trump's false claims about the 2020 race — while others argued that this tactic would instead be used to suppress voter turnout via intimidation. Not directly affiliated with the administration, Bannon has in recent months made several outlandish claims about Trump's future plans, including that he intends to run for an illegal third term.

"The White House has, for now, disavowed Bannon’s proposal, but that means little," Ball wrote. "Trump himself spent much of the 2024 election campaign disavowing 'Project 2025' – the radical nationalist blueprint for his second administration – only to hire one of its chief architects into his White House, and enact the plan almost in full. The President’s opponents are right to view Bannon’s plan as a very real possibility."

AN 1 26

Despite denials from a senior Trump administration official, secret watchlists of Americans are being used by federal agencies to track and categorize US citizens—especially protesters, activists, and critics of law enforcement—as “domestic terrorists,” investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Wednesday.

Klippenstein said that two senior national security officials speaking on condition of anonymity told him that there are over a dozen “secret and obscure” watchlists that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI are using to track anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and pro-Palestine protesters, antifa-affiliated individuals, and “others who are promiscuously labeled ‘domestic terrorists.’”

“I can reveal for the first time,” he wrote, “that some of the secret lists and applications go by codenames like Bluekey, Grapevine, Hummingbird, Reaper, Sandcastle, Sienna, Slipstream, and Sparta (including the ominous sounding HEL-A and HEL-C reports generated by Sparta).”

“Some of these, like Hummingbird, were created to vet and track immigrants, in this case Afghans seeking to settle in the United States,” Klippenstein explained. “Slipstream is a classified social media repository. Others are tools used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking.”

“There’s practically nothing available that further describes what these watchlists do, how large they are, or what they entail,” he added.

Klippenstein’s revelation seemingly flies in the face of DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin’s recent denial that the administration has a database containing the names of people accused of domestic terrorism.

“There’s just one problem: She’s lying,” wrote Klippenstein.

Many observers already thought as much, especially after a masked federal enforcer taunted an anti-ICE protester in Maine by telling her that “we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”

White House “border czar” Tom Homan—who was recently sent to Minnesota to oversee the anti-immigrant blitz following the departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino amid outrage over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—also said this month that “we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault, we’re going to make them famous.”

Reporting Tuesday that Pretti—the nurse who was disarmed and then shot dead by federal enforcers in Minneapolis last week—was known to Trump officials after a previous encounter in which agentsbroke his rib raised further questions about government watchlists.

“We came out of 9/11 with the notion that we would have a single ‘terrorist’ watch list to eliminate confusion, duplication, and avoid bad communications, but ever since January 6, not only have we expanded exponentially into purely domestic watchlisting, but we have also created a highly secretive and compartmented superstructure that few even understand,” a DHS attorney “intimately familiar” with the matter told Klippenstein on condition of anonymity, referring to the deadly January 2021 Capitol insurrection.

According to Klippenstein:

Prior to 9/11, there were nine federal agencies that maintained 12 separate watchlists. Now, officially there are just three: a watch list of 1.1 million international terrorists, a watch list of more than 10,000 domestic terrorists maintained by the FBI, and a new watch list of transnational criminals, built up to more than 85,000 over the past decade...Among other functions, the new watchlists process tips, situation reports, and collected photographs and video submitted by both the public and from agents in the field; they create a “common operating picture” in places like Minneapolis; they allow task forces to target individuals for surveillance and arrest; and they create the capacity for intelligence people to link individuals together through geographic proximity or what is labeled “call chaining” by processing telephone numbers, emails, and other contact information.

Asked about how the Trump administration might try to legally justify these watchlists, Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program director, cited President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7), which mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

Levinson-Waldman also noted Attorney General Pam Bondi’s December 5 memo directing federal agencies to expand the investigation and prosecution of “domestic terrorism,” including groups “aligned” with antifa, an anti-fascist ideology that does not exist as an organization.

One senior intelligence official who confirmed the existence of the watchlists warned Klippenstein: “Lists of this and that—this social media post, that video taken of someone videoing ICE, the mere attendance at a protest—gets pulsed by federal cops on the beat to check for criminality but eventually just becomes a list itself of criminality, with the cops thinking that indeed they are dealing with criminals and terrorists. Watchlists, and the whole watchlisting process, should be as transparent as possible, not the other way around.”

“If we don’t explore more why all of these secret lists exist,” the official added, there could be “even more of an environment of paranoia on the ground and more tragic killings.”

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an 12 25

Reporting from MS NOW shows the Trump administration knew current White House immigration advisor Tom Homan was under investigation for bribery before Trump submitted Homan’s name to Congress for approval.

In early January, a Justice Department lawyer passed an envelope with news of Homan’s “bombshell” crookery, according to two people briefed on the meeting. The official who received the information, Trump’s personal attorney Emil Bove “closed his eyes and grimaced, according to two people briefed on the meeting,” reports Pulitzer Prize-winning author and MS NOW contributor Carol Leonnig,

Giving Bove the memo was an unprecedented move,, but a small group of career lawyers at the Justice Department felt “an urgency to share this sensitive information with the president-elect's team as soon as possible.”

Not that the team appeared to care, said Leonnig. After the FBI’s criminal bribery probe into Homan came to light, the Trump team didn't quietly cut him loose. It's not even clear what Bove did with the information DOJ officials gave him about Homan. Instead, Homan got both the job and the security clearance it required, and Trump's FBI director quietly closed the bureau's criminal bribery probe into Homan, despite Homan never denying taking a paper bag full of cash proffered by agents in a sting. And Trump would later elevate Bove to a U.S. Circuit Court judgeship.

“Donald Trump balked at the notion that all other presidents had followed before him of submitting names for these FBI background checks,” Leonnig told Johnson. “If the president-elect had done that the way normal people do, he would have gotten the alert and the benefit of the FBI’s research, and known that the guy he was considering for a very senior law enforcement post was indeed under criminal investigation for potentially soliciting bribes, and had been recorded accepting $50,000 in cash in a bag.”

Johnson pointed out that many federal jobs vet employees so thoroughly that even a candidate’s debt-to-income ratio can boot them from the running because of the threat their financial hunger represents to taxpayers.

“That's … why DOJ officials believed there was no way [Homan] was going to get a security clearance, and that he would be suitable for such a job, Leonnig said. “How could he have access to some of the government's most important secrets and sensitive information if he was a person who might be willing to take money in exchange for things of value? Could a foreign adversary approach him and say, ‘let me give you $100,000 in a Chipotle bag?’”

During his first term, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner did not initially receive a top-secret security clearance, based on the fact that Kushner had “made a lot of outreach to foreign sovereign wealth funds for financing, because he was in dire financial straits and very much in the red on a very large mortgage," per Leonnig.

“And so, the worry as described by those security officials was that [Kushner] was very manipulable," she said. "That was their word: manipulable. And in this instance, DOJ officials believed that Homan had already illustrated he was willing to take cash in appearing to promise to steer contracts. What else might he be willing to do?”

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an 12 25

Tom Homan, a top White House advisor to Donald Trump on matters concerning border security and immigration, appears to have been skipped over for a typical background check while he was under an FBI investigation for bribery, according to an MS NOW report from Tuesday.

Earlier this year, a report found that Homan, who previously served as an acting director for ICE early in the first Trump administration, had been recorded in September 2024 accepting a restaurant to-go bag filled with $50,000 from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives. The understanding was that Homan was soliciting a bribe in exchange for helping them receive government contracts if Trump were reelected.

According to the new report from MS NOW, "a small group of career lawyers at the Justice Department" were compelled to get this information to Trump's transition team following the 2024 election, believing it could "head off potential embarrassment and a security clearance problem before Trump picked his future Cabinet and top appointees." Trump announced on Nov. 10, just a few days after his reelection, that he would be appointing Homan as his "border czar," an informal but highly placed advisory role in the White House.

"Justice officials felt sure Homan would not be able to obtain a security clearance based on the evidence gathered in the corruption probe, which they and FBI agents believed had shown Homan unsuitable for a trusted senior role in government service, according to the sources," MS NOW's report explained.

Despite this, Trump's resistance to submitting names to the FBI for background checks appears to have stalled these efforts. Trump did not agree to provide a list of potential appointees until Dec. 3, nearly a month after the election and much later than has typical for incoming administrations. This list was not complete, however, containing only "picks who required Senate confirmation and a few other members of agency landing teams," meaning it did not include Homan.

According to MS NOW, the "bombshell" revelation about Homan's bribery probe did not reach Emil Bove, a member of Trump's personal legal team who eventually served as acting deputy attorney general at the start of his second term, until "very late in Trump’s process of shaping the future administration," as the concerned DOJ staffers had to wait until he was formally appointed to a post transition team post. Despite this information, Homan was able to obtain a security clearance, and it's unclear if the probe had any impact at all.

"It remains unclear how Homan was eventually granted a security clearance, or whom Bove alerted after being briefed on the Homan probe," MS NOW's report explained.

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mma

Trump's border czar dominates Fox airtime, leaving homeland security secretary trailing far behind

Axios revealed tension between Tom Homan and Kristi Noem over Fox appearances

Written by Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Isabella Sherk

Published 12/11/25

Axios has reported on a growing rift inside the Trump administration between Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Homan, who insiders say barely speak to each other. According to Axios, Noem's supporters are also criticizing Homan's frequent Fox appearances, which sometimes feature off-the-cuff policy declarations “that catch officials off guard.”

Media Matters found that Homan has made more appearances on Fox than any other administration official this year, far outpacing his counterpart. And those hits, which Axios says “have led Noem's supporters to cast him as a self-promoter without portfolio,” have reportedly become a flashpoint in their rivalry.

Since Trump's inauguration, Homan has made nearly three times as many Fox appearances as Noem. Throughout the year, he has consistently topped the list as the most Fox-friendly administration official, appearing at least 140 times, with 115 hits on Fox News and an additional 25 on Fox Business. Meanwhile, Noem has appeared only 48 times on Fox News, with no appearances on Fox Business.

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Key Trump officials appeared on Fox networks more than 1,300 times in the first 300 days of his second term

Written by Isabella Sherk & Harrison Ray

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 12/04/25

:{:{Key officials in President Donald Trump’s second administration appeared on Fox networks over 1,300 times during his first 300 days back in office. Trump “border czar” Tom Homan led all officials with at least 133 appearances, while Fox News' Hannity led shows in airing the most appearances by Trump officials, with at least 158 interviews. Trump officials appeared on Fox networks on 290 (97%) of the administration's first 300 days.}:

## Key Trump administration officials appeared at least 1,361 times on Fox networks

Media Matters looked at Fox appearances by key nominated or confirmed Trump officials during the administration’s first 300 days. Trump's “border czar” Homan remained the most prominent administration official on the networks, appearing at least 133 times in total (he had logged 59 appearances when we assessed the first 100 days). White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller (82 appearances), National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett (75), and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin (74) followed. Trump himself has appeared on Fox News at least 26 times.

Top 10 key Trump officials on Fox networks (Clickhere for the full list)

## Fox shows are a trusted platform for Trump administration interviews

Hannity far outpaced all other Fox shows, with at least 158 appearances by key Trump officials. At least 23 unique Trump officials appeared on the show, led by Miller (35 appearances), Homan (21), and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (16).

Prime-time host Sean Hannity consistently served as a loyal booster for both his guests and the Trump White House, dedicating an entire section of his recent interview with Vice President JD Vance to praising the president’s “discernment” and claiming Trump’s energy levels are “beyond.”

Video file

Video

Citation

From the November 13, 2025, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

After Hannity, The Ingraham Angle had the most appearances (121 appearances), followed by Fox & Friends (111). In total, 436 (45%) of the 959 officials’ appearances on Fox News were on the network's evening programming (shows starting between 6 p.m. ET and 11 p.m. ET). Meanwhile, 587 (61%) of the appearances were on Fox News' opinion shows rather than the network’s supposed “news side.”

On Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo (128 appearances), Kudlow (103), and Varney & Co. (76) featured the most appearances by key Trump officials. Fox Business served as a pliant venue for Trump's economic messaging, providing officials with a sympathetic platform to defend the administration's controversial and chaotic economic moves.

Top 10 shows on Fox networks with most appearances by key Trump officials

## Former Fox employees who are now administration officials appeared at least 315 times

Several of the Trump officials featured on the Fox networks were also former Fox employees: former contributor Homan (133 appearances); former host-turned-Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (65); former contributor-turned-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary (38); former contributor and White House national security adviser-turned-Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz (28); former contributor-turned-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (27); and former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host-turned-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (24). In total, nearly a quarter (23%) of all key Trump official interviews across the two networks came from these 6 former Fox employees.

(Trump has tapped many other former Fox employees to be part of his second administration as well.)

## Methodology...

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MMA

far-right sheriffs organization says Trump “border czar” Tom Homan is sending a representative to its upcoming conference

The group has been pushing for sheriffs to get involved with ICE’s deportation efforts

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published 10/02/25

Richard Mack, the leader of a far-right sheriffs organization, told multiple podcasts in late September that President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan said he would send at least a member of his staff to the organization’s upcoming national conference.

Mack is a former Arizona county sheriff and the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, an organization which subscribes to the ideology that sheriffs “should be the ultimate law enforcement authority in the U.S.” The organization claims that sheriffs have the “Constitutional authority to check and balance all levels of government,” superseding “any agent, officer, elected official or employee from any level of government when in the jurisdiction of the county.” Constitutional scholars and other experts dispute this assertion, with some noting that the Constitution doesn’t mention sheriffs at all.

Mack and CSPOA have pushed for sheriffs to get involved with mass deportation efforts, even holding the organization’s November national conference in Washington state in part because its attorney general is suing a sheriff for aiding the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. Mack also said he has been talking to Homan about “getting sheriffs involved in deportation.”

In a September 20 podcast appearance, Mack said that he met with Homan just days earlier and had invited him to CSPOA’s upcoming conference.

According to Mack, Homan told him he was “going to run it past President Trump,” and either Homan or his aide would attend. “I hope Tom comes, and quite honestly, I hope he brings Trump,” Mack added.

Video

Citation

From the September 20, 2025, edition of His Glory TV's Take Five, streamed on YouTube

During podcast appearances on September 23 and 26, Mack again mentioned meeting with and inviting Homan to the conference, claiming that Homan said he would at least send his “liaison with local law enforcement” or “his chief of staff” to the conference.

### Leader of far-right sheriffs organization says he's “had several conversations” with Trump “border czar” Tom Homan about mass deportations

:{12/04/24

### Leader of far-right sheriffs organization asks QAnon figure what to “tell sheriffs to do”

:{09/09/24

### Far-right conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel says she's had “private conversations” with Trump “border czar” Tom Homan about mass deportations

12/10/24

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How Fox covers for Trump administration malfeasance

Monday night was a perfect case study

Written by Matt Gertz

Published09/23/25 MMA

The job of a Fox News evening host isn’t to cover President Donald Trump and his administration, it’s to give them cover. The network’s stars are shameless propagandists who employ a variety of tactics to hide the president’s misdeeds from their viewers. Their Monday night programs, which followed days of administration chaos and corruption, perfectly encapsulate how this process works.

Trump and his supporters, in just a few short months, have ushered in an unprecedented and radical transformation of American political life. A president who won office in large part by exploiting voter discontent over rising prices has exacerbated that problem through unilateral tariffs while simultaneously consolidating power, crushing dissent, enriching himself and his allies, and dismantling and remaking agencies that secure goals like public health.

The result is that any given day can feature several instances of wildly scandalous behavior, any one of which might have sunk a previous administration.

On Monday night, four such stories were circulating: Trump pushed out a U.S. attorney who had refused to prosecute his political opponent on insufficient evidence and replaced him with a crony; several outlets reported that his Justice Department appointees quashed a probe into a White House adviser who had been recorded taking a cash bribe; there was ongoing fallout from his top media regulator publicly threatening media companies over airing Jimmy Kimmel’s show; and at a White House event the president and his advisers issued a warning over Tylenol usage based on an unproven link to autism.

Any of those stories, explained in context, could prove devastating for the president and his team. But Trump has maintained high approval ratings with his supporters — and thus maintained lock-step backing from congressional Republicans — in no small part because his base gets information through the filter of right-wing media. And much of the right-wing media, fearing a revolt from their audiences, isn’t inclined to provide information that conflicts with their biases.

Here’s how each of those scandals played out Monday night on the panel show The Five and the eponymous programs of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Sean Hannity.

### Fox ignored Trump replacing a defiant prosecutor with a crony

What happened:On Friday, ABC News reported that Trump was “expected to fire” U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert because Siebert had refused White House demands to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously prosecuted Trump, because investigators did not find incriminating evidence against her. After Siebert left office, Trump publicly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to “act fast” on prosecutions against James, former FBI Director James Comey, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in what The New York Times called “an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal.” The president subsequently appointed Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide and longtime Trump legal adviser with no experience as a prosecutor, to replace Siebert; she took office as acting U.S. attorney on Monday.

Fox’s response: Fox’s stars spent the years of Trump’s first term and Joe Biden's presidency complaining of a two-tiered system of justice in which federal law enforcement agencies were persecuting the right while letting the left off the hook. In reality, Republican and Trump-appointed officials kept finding sufficient evidence to prosecute Trump and his allies and didn’t find enough to do the same against his foes. But now that Trump is loudly and publicly demanding politicized prosecutions — and pushing out his own appointed prosecutor when he refused to play along — the same voices have gone silent: The story was not mentioned Monday on The Five or the programs of Ingraham, Watters, and Hannity.

Many such cases: Fox hosts have similarly ignored stories about Trump’s relationship with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. killing research into next-generation vaccines; statements by an immigrant the Trump administration sent in error to a notorious foreign prison who says he was beaten and sexually assaulted by guards; reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information derived from a classified email over an unsecured group chat; and an exodus of top Defense Department staffers over concerns with Hegseth’s management style.

### Fox excused Trump regulator threatening media companies

What happened: Two days after ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel inaccurately suggested that the alleged killer of Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk was part of “the MAGA gang,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr publicly threatened ABC’s affiliates and its corporate parent, Disney, with regulatory retribution. Nexstar, a large affiliate network which needs Carr’s approval for a corporate merger, subsequently said its affiliates would immediately preempt Kimmel’s show; soon after, ABC announced that the program was suspended indefinitely. On Monday, after widespread criticism of the administration’s effort to curtail speech and ABC’s capitulation, Disney said Kimmel would return to the air on Tuesday.

Fox’s response:Several Fox hosts used the news that Kimmel was returning to the air to claim that his initial removal had been a business decision unrelated to administration pressure. Hannity claimed that while those “on the left” had been “melting down” and falsely blaming Trump for Kimmel’s suspension, it was now proven to have been “a decision by ABC Disney, not the government.” Watters called it a “show-biz decision” and aired a chyron stating “ABC benched Kimmel, not Trump.” Ingraham agreed with guest Raymond Arroyo’s claim that “ABC deciding to put Kimmel back on, it does lay to rest this narrative that somehow the government was orchestrating his removal from the air.” Fox host and former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on The Five, “The government didn't decide it because he’s back tomorrow, so quite clearly the government didn’t force this.” Their talking point aligned with arguments that Republican politicians and Carr himself had offered about the case as they backpedaled away from its free-speech implications.

Many such cases:Fox hosts similarly made excuses when Trump tried to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook over a pretext; when Trump failed to release Epstein documents as he promised; when a Democratic senator was violently removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference; when a foreign government gifted Trump a plane valued at $400 million; when the administration sent people in error to a notorious foreign prison; and when top Trump aides discussed plans for military strikes in an unsecured text chain — and inadvertently included a journalist in the group.

### Fox aided Trump advisor caught in bribery scandal

What happened: MSNBC and other news outlets reported over the weekend that the FBI had recorded White House border czar Tom Homan accepting a bag of cash from undercover agents in September 2024 as part of a corruption investigation, and that the probe was subsequently scuttled by Trump law enforcement appointees. Homan, at the time a Fox contributor and a close Trump adviser pegged for a key administration role on immigration if Trump were elected, had reportedly indicated to the agents that he could help them win government contracts. In statements, top officials from the FBI, DOJ, and White House claimed the probe had not uncovered evidence of illegal activity — but notably did not deny that Homan had been recorded taking a bag of cash from undercover agents.

Fox’s response: Fox hosts regularly provide administration officials and other appointees an opportunity to field friendly questions that help them spin damaging stories. Ingraham gave Homan that treatment on Monday. After offering him softball questions about a new California law banning ICE agents from wearing masks and how the administration can “speed up” mass deportations, she asked him to respond to the story from “our always reliable MSNBC” that “you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term.” In his minute-long response, Homan denounced the “hit piece,” claimed that “nothing illegal happened,” and touted his own “sacrifices” and work for the president — but notably did not deny taking the bag of money. For her part, Ingraham let Homan ramble and ended the interview rather than asking a follow-up question to clarify that point.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly aided Kennedy after he purged top leaders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Hegseth after he shared attack plans over an unsecured text chain.

### Fox cheered Trump pushing unproven Tylenol-autism link

What happened:Researchers have found that autism is largely a heritable condition and that the increase in cases over the years is due primarily to a broadening of the diagnostic criteria. But at a Monday event at the White House, Trump, Kennedy, and other top health aides “launched a broad offensive against the mainstream understanding of autism, claiming without new evidence that acetaminophen — the active ingredient in the common pain reliever Tylenol — was a cause of the disorder,” as The New York Times put it. Health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, previously called such evidence inconclusive, and the drug is “considered one of the few safe options to treat pain or fever during pregnancy.”

Fox’s response: Ingraham on Monday touted the administration for “sounding the alarm” over a link between Tylenol and autism in response to how “the number of children with autism has spiked unbelievably over the last number of years.” She then hosted Trump health officials Mehmet Oz and Marty Makary to tout the “growing body of evidence” in support of the administration’s position and to denounce contrary findings as “false.” Watters likewise highlighted the White House’s “major medical bombshell” before turning to another Trump health official, Jay Bhattacharya, to praise the administration for supporting “prudent medicine” and providing a “judicious evaluation” of the evidence.

Many such cases: Fox hosts similarly cheered after Bondi reportedly ordered federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury probe into various Obama administration figures on spurious grounds; Trump ordered strikes on Iranian nuclear targets; the president enacted various unilateral tariff shifts; and the Trump administration implemented a mass purge of FBI agents.

MMA //

### The Trumpist media is demanding politicized justice

06/14/23 1:24 PM EDT

### Jimmy Kimmel and the MAGA strong-arming of American media

09/18/25 12:00 PM EDT

### Fox averts its eyes from former employee Homan reportedly receiving a bag of cash

09/22/25

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Fox averts its eyes from former employee Homan reportedly receiving a bag of cash

Written by Matt Gertz

Research contributions from Harrison Ray

Updated 09/22/25

Fox News has yet to address on-air the recent reports that White House border czar Tom Homan, while working as a contributor for the network in September 2024, accepted a bag of cash from undercover FBI agents as part of a corruption investigation which was subsequently closed under the Trump administration.

MSNBC reported on Saturday:

In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.

The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled soon after Donald Trump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the case, two of the people said.

It’s unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation. But a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a “deep state” probe in early 2025 and no further investigative steps were taken, the sources say.

The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election, according to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case.

The handoff, according to MSNBC, came on September 20, 2024, while Homan was making frequent appearances on Fox as a paid network contributor in which he promoted Trump’s xenophobic positions. Homan had joined Fox after retiring as ICE’s acting director in 2018, a position in which he reportedly served as the “intellectual ‘father’” of the Trump administration’s depraved family separation policy.

The New York Times and ABC News subsequently confirmed MSNBC’s reporting, with the Times adding the detail that the cash payment had been “made inside a bag from the food chain Cava.”

Notably, in their statements to the outlets, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson did not deny the reporting that Homan had been recorded taking a bag of cash from undercover agents. Instead, they claimed that the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of illicit activity when it closed the investigation.

But MSNBC’s legal experts concluded that while Homan’s “actions didn’t clearly fit under a standard bribery charge” because neither he nor Trump were in office at the time, further investigation was warranted to determine whether he would continue accepting bags of cash once he was a public official. (A lesser charge would have been possible based on his promise to commit the crime, and MSNBC reported that “several FBI and Justice officials believed that they had a strong criminal case.”)

To state the obvious: Fox would be covering this story if it implicated a Democratic official and administration. But as of posting time (noon ET), the network has not mentioned it.

Homan is the lynchpin of the right’s anti-immigrant strategy. He makes regular appearances on Fox and throughout the MAGA media ecosystem, helping them churn out propaganda in support of Trump’s cruel, unlawful, and increasingly unpopular mass deportation policies.

Homan is a loyal member of the Trump team, and so its other members are uninterested in whether he was taking bags of cash in exchange for promises of future favors. Former Fox host Megyn Kelly made this explicit, responding to the MSNBC scoop over the weekend by posting, “We DO NOT CARE. Don’t bother [Homan] he’s a national treasure.”

Fox’s stable of propagandists apparently agree. The network regularly shields from its viewers information that reflects poorly on Trump, the policies he supports, and the administration he assembled. A recording of their former colleague accepting a bag of cash is apparently no different.

{Update (9/22/25, 3:10 p.m.):* White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the Homan probe during her briefing, which Fox carried live in its 1 p.m. hour. Leavitt responded that Homan “never took the $50,000 that you're referring to, so you should get your facts straight.” After the briefing concluded, Fox anchor Gillian Turner asked Fox political correspondent Byron York about the exchange. York called Leavitt’s denial “huge” and a “clear conflict” with what was reported elsewhere.}:

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### Fox contributor Tom Homan is the “intellectual ‘father’” of family separation

08/08/22

### With “Border Czar” Tom Homan, Trump restarts the revolving door between Fox and his administration

11/12/24

### Inside the alliance between right-wing media and Trump “Border Czar” Tom Homan

08/07/25

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AN 9 25

President Donald Trump's border czar Tom Homan is facing backlash following reports released Saturday that revealed he was investigated by the FBI for allegedly accepting a $50,000 cash payment from undercover agents posing as business executives. The investigation, initiated in 2024, was ultimately closed by Trump administration officials earlier this year due to a lack of "credible evidence" of criminal wrongdoing.

Conservative commentator Sarah Longwell sharply reacted to the news, calling the lack of accountability “insane” and saying the scandal is emblematic of broader corruption in the Trump orbit.

During a podcast on The BulwarkSaturday, she argued that the entire “ecosystem around Trump sells influence,” noting that people close to Trump often profit simply by being close, promising to deliver favors or contracts if he wins, regardless of whether they hold formal office. She said it mirrors what she sees as “downstream corruption” from Trump — from countries offering bribes, to premium‑clubs run by his children — and that in Homan’s case, it shows how normalized these kinds of allegations have become.

Longwell noted that Homan has been a controversial figure in the administration.

"If this were just some unnamed member of the Trump administration, people would probably be like, yep, they’re all corrupt. But in this case, this guy is... like one of the biggest villains in the Trump administration."

IFrame Content

She continued: "He is the architect of going and yanking people off the streets, of sending people to torture prisons, even when they’re innocent. Like that’s this guy. And so knives will be out forever for this guy. And rightly so. He has been terrible from the beginning. He has never made even an ounce of an attempt to act like he is going to work through the immigration process in sort of a lawful, humane way. He has been clear from the jump he was going to be as inhumane and destructive as possible as he did this. And so it doesn’t strike me one bit that this is not a good person. And that it is the kind of person who was taking old school bribes," she added.

The Bulwark's Tim Miller added that what distinguishes this scandal is its relative simplicity. He said the Homan case, essentially accepting a bag of cash in exchange for promising favors, is the sort of corruption most people can immediately grasp.

Miller contrasted it with more abstract or technical issues like crypto, stablecoins, or AI regulation, which tend to lose people’s attention.

"I do wonder if that the simplicity of it is going to mean that there is a greater firestorm around this than there’s been around the crypto stuff," he added.

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MMA

This segment exemplifies how Fox feeds garbage anti-immigrant slop to its audience

A recent appearance by Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin illustrates how the network pushes bad “worst of the worst” data

Written by John Knefel

Published 08/08/25

Right-wing media have worked symbiotically with President Donald Trump’s administration to manufacture false media narratives of immigrant criminality and to justify subsequent crackdowns on those communities. A recent segment on Fox Business’ Mornings With Maria Bartiromo perfectly illustrates this dynamic, as guest host Cheryl Casone enabled a Homeland Security spokesperson to uncritically spread a baseless statistic to bolster the administration’s claim that it’s pursuing the so-called “worst of the worst.”

:{Video

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From the August 4, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria Bartiromo

On August 4, Casone introduced Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin by discussing legal challenges Trump has faced in carrying out his mass deportation plans.

“What is the path forward here from the legal side, from the attorneys at DHS, to make sure that these deportations continue to be carried out as the American public had asked for?” Casone said.

(This framing is already misleading — in mid-July, polls from CNN and CBS News both found that a majority of respondents oppose the administration’s increased deportation program.)

After assuring the Fox Business’ audience that Trump’s targeting of immigrants had nothing to do with “racial animus,” McLaughlin moved on to what has become a common administration talking point to claim Trump’s policies “are focused on criminality.”

(Meanwhile, DHS recently asked the Supreme Court to allow ICE agents to use factors like speaking Spanish or working in construction as a partial basis for reasonable suspicion that a person is in the country without authorization.)

“Seventy percent of those illegal aliens who have been arrested under the Trump administration either have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges,” McLaughlin said. “So we are focused on getting people like MS-13 gang members, Tren de Aragua, terrorists, murderers, rapists — the worst of the worst out of this country.”

“We will keep on going, flooding the zone in sanctuary cities, and going after the worst of the worst,” she added.

The data point that McLaughlin cited — which Casone didn’t challenge — appears to have first been used in a DHS press release on June 26. DHS has used the statistic in at least seven press releases since then, and Trump “border czar” Tom Homan — the most frequent administration official to appear on the Fox networks since Trump's inauguration — has repeated it numerous times across right-wing media.

As Media Matters previously reported, the statistic appears to be false based on independent sources that collect federal data.

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which is frequently cited in media and legal publications for collecting government data, “71.1% [of detainees] held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction according to data current as of July 27, 2025. Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations.” TRAC further notes that just 24% of ICE detainees had pending criminal charges as of July 13.

Reports from CBS News and The Associated Press have found comparable numbers.

When Homan has recently claimed that 70% of ICE arrestees are criminals, he has sometimes added that the remaining 30% are “national security threats.” This figure appears to be the product of his own imagination. In some of statements, he has lumped in immigrants with final orders of removal alongside so-called terrorists and gang members to pad his statistic.

A CBS News report last month found that since the beginning of Trump’s second term, “3,256 of the more than 100,000 people removed were known or suspected gang members or terrorists.” That’s about 3% — not 30% — and databases that purport to list “terrorists” or “gang members” are notoriously inaccurate.

A news outlet that was interested in giving its audience reliable information might include any of that context when interviewing a Trump administration immigration official, but that's not the role Fox was created to serve.

### Inside the alliance between right-wing media and Trump “Border Czar” Tom Homan

08/07/25 9:09 AM EDT

### Right-wing media's campaign against due process for immigrants

08/05/25 3:30 PM EDT

### Fox News scoffed that Andry Hernandez was “just a gay barber” when Trump sent him to a torture prison. Now, Fox ignores reporting that he was sexually assaulted there.

08/04/25

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MMA

Leader of far-right sheriffs organization says ICE's social media surveillance plan is “completely unconstitutional”

Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association founder Richard Mack: Trump’s border czar Tom Homan “has been kind of rendered impotent when it comes to doing his job right now because he's been under that criminal investigation”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 10/17/25

According to Wired:

United States immigration authorities are moving to dramatically expand their social media surveillance, with plans to hire nearly 30 contractors to sift through posts, photos, and messages—raw material to be transformed into intelligence for deportation raids and arrests.

Federal contracting records reviewed by WIRED show that the agency is seeking private vendors to run a multiyear surveillance program out of two of its little-known targeting centers. The program envisions stationing nearly 30 private analysts at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Vermont and Southern California. Their job: Scour Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms, converting posts and profiles into fresh leads for enforcement raids.

The initiative is still at the request-for-information stage, a step agencies use to gauge interest from contractors before an official bidding process. But draft planning documents show the scheme is ambitious: ICE wants a contractor capable of staffing the centers around the clock, constantly processing cases on tight deadlines, and supplying the agency with the latest and greatest subscription-based surveillance software.

More information on Richard Mack and the constitutional sheriffs movement can be found here.

Video

Citation

From the October 16, 2025, edition of Liberty RoundTable, streamed on YouTube

SAM BUSHMAN (HOST): Alright sheriff, ICE is in the news, and I'm really concerned. I like a lot of what ICE has done, but I'm concerned now.

There's an article in Wired Magazine. Dell Cameron put the article together and here's the headline. “ICE wants to build out a 24/7 social media surveillance team.” Now I'm very concerned about that. “Documents show ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to target people for deportation.”

Now, it sounds great on the surface sheriff, and I get that we want to use all we can to stop illegal aliens from abusing American citizens.

RICHARD MACK (FOUNDER, CONSTITUTIONAL SHERIFFS AND PEACE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION): Yeah.

BUSHMAN: I get it and agree. But when you crank this up, pretty soon you're going to have ICE built 24/7 media-monitoring network that'll be taken over by the Democrats. And, buddy, they will use that thing like a — I don't even know what word to use. A samurai sword that's double bladed, double sided. I don't know. It'll be crazy if we're not careful. So we think we're doing things that are right, but it'll backfire, sheriff.

MACK: No. That's — yeah. That's completely unconstitutional. And, I can't — I can't support it, Sam.

...

MACK: Government isn't who has the best ideas. Government is successful when we follow the rules, when we follow the Constitution, when we enforce it, when we keep our oath, when we see the foundational principles in action, and that now they're being destroyed by our own government officials because they have a — ”Oh, we got a great idea here.” There's sheriffs that go along with some of this stuff. “If it helps us get criminals, then we're going to do it, the Constitution be damned or the Constitution notwithstanding.”

And this is the problem. We've all been brainwashed, including Republicans, that if we have a good idea, well, of course, we just do it. And it's so wrong, and this is so indicative of the corruption within our own government that thinks it can do anything it wants. And that's why we had the Patriot Act from the the George W [Bush] presidency and administration. So, no Sam. I'm not going to support that.

And I will call somebody in Washington, D.C. who you and I both know is working with ICE a great deal. And I'm going to make that call. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] We cannot sacrifice the Constitution —

BUSHMAN: And ask about that because the question is, when we say ICE is for this, who is ICE? Does that mean Trump? Does that mean Tom Homan? Does that mean, you know, Kash Patel and people? Does it mean Pam Bondi? Does it mean Kristi Noem? Who is wanting this to be the case? I get their point. The problem is they're very misguided. Is the right idea the wrong for remedy, sheriff?

MACK: Yeah. Again, I guess what you're alluding to there is make — don't let the cure be worse than the disease.

BUSHMAN: Amen to that.

MACK: And that's kind of — that's what they're kind of doing here. And, you know — and Tom Homan has been kind of rendered impotent when it comes to doing his job right now because he's been under that criminal investigation.

...

MACK: Please tell me, Sam, that Tom Homan is smarter than to take a bag full of money from somebody walking up to him on the street or, you know, looking like a —

BUSHMAN: He didn't take a bag full of money from walking up to him on the street, folks.

### A far-right sheriffs organization says Trump “border czar” Tom Homan is sending a representative to its upcoming conference

10/02/25 12:57 PM EDT

### How “constitutional sheriffs” use right-wing media to promote the movement’s extremist talking points

09/27/24 9:00 AM EDT

### Leader of far-right sheriffs organization says he doesn't think Trump's plan for mass deportations “is even constitutional”

12/12/2

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MMA 8 25

Inside the alliance between right-wing media and Trump “Border Czar” Tom Homan

As the public recoils from “Alligator Alcatraz” and Trump’s mass deportation agenda, conservative outlets work overtime to help Homan mislead their audiences

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe

Published 08/07/25

When Harris Faulkner concluded a recent interview with Tom Homan — President Donald Trump’s “border czar” tasked with carrying out the administration’s mass deportation operations — she did so with a benediction.

“God bless you, Tom Homan, for keeping us safe,” the Fox News anchor said solemnly.

Fox host Jesse Watters took a different, more threatening approach when he demanded that Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), who is Guatemalan American, “acknowledge” that “no other country is as great as the United States,” and “if she doesn't, I'm calling Homan — she's going home.”

The devotion that Faulkner and Watters show to Homan is hardly unique in right-wing media. More than any other figure in Trump’s inner circle save perhaps deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Homan is the person conservative outlets turn to when they need someone in Trump-world to champion the administration’s increasingly unpopular immigration policies.

According to a Media Matters review, Homan has appeared on Fox News 78 times this year and an additional 20 times on Fox Business, making him the most frequent Trump administration guest on the Fox networks since Trump's inauguration. But his reach in conservative media extends far beyond those appearances.

Over the month of July, right-wing media fawned over Homan in interviews, aiding him in manufacturing false narratives about widespread migrant crime and encouraging him to threaten so-called sanctuary cities with increased raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Conservative interviewers also ignored or downplayed horrific conditions at a Florida immigrant detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” including allegations that detainees had been subjected to overflowing toilets, food filled with worms, and had been chained to the ground. A whistleblower just came forward describing “inhumane conditions” at the facility. These interviewers simultaneously offered Homan a platform to wildly inflate the number of so-called criminals and “national security threats” that ICE had arrested.

This dynamic illustrates the symbiotic relationship between Homan, who had his own lucrative career as a conservative pundit and consultant, and the right-wing media ecosystem — where each party has an incentive to demonize immigrants, ignore critical reporting, and create narratives about social disorder that they attribute to immigrant communities, all in the service of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

“God bless you, Tom Homan”: Right-wing media’s month of softball interviews with Trump’s border czar

On July 1, a day before officials at Alligator Alcatraz began concentrating people in the encampment, Homan appeared on Charlie Kirk’s influential podcast.

Video

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From the July 1, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

“Tell us about the significance of Alligator Alcatraz,” Kirk began. “What is it and what will it be used for?”

After Homan offered his standard anti-immigrant boilerplate to plead on behalf of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Kirk responded: “You’re doing a wonderful job.”

“We have your back, Tom Homan,” Kirk said at the conclusion of the interview, calling for “10 million deportations” after Homan promised to “flood the zone with sanctuary cities,” declared “zero tolerance” for those who impede ICE operations, and defended ICE personnel (“They’re not Nazis”).

Appearing on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom on July 7, anchor Bill Hemmer asked Homan about the new facility in southern Florida and whether other states might be willing to open similar sites. Homan took aim at people who opposed the administration’s approach, complaining that blue states are “too busy attacking ICE and they’re too busy attacking Trump’s policies,” referring to a shooting at an immigrant detention facility in Texas on July 4. Hemmer responded: “On that point, could this get ugly?” It was his only follow-up question.

Homan had a busy following day. Fox News’ Martha MacCallum interviewed him and didn’t ask about Alligator Alcatraz. Neither did Newsmax’s Greg Kelly, though the host found the time to shower Homan with praise, saying “you guys are on fire,” and “nobody knows the law better than you.” (Kelly also incorrectly stated, “Habeas corpus is great, but I don't think it applies to an illegal alien,” echoing a larger right-wing media campaign to suspend due process protections for immigrants.) Fox Business host and former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow introduced Homan by calling him “one of my great heroes.” Kudlow also didn’t bring up Alligator Alcatraz.

Homan has appeared on Fox News 78 times this year and an additional 20 times on Fox Business, making him the most frequent Trump administration guest on Fox by far

On July 10, Fox anchor John Roberts asked Homan three questions, all about sensational but unrepresentative examples of immigrants committing acts of violence. “There could be more, and that’s truly frightening,” Roberts said to conclude the segment.

:{Kirk hosted Homan for a VID]

lengthy, in-person at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit on July 12. “The great Tom Homan,” Kirk said by way of introduction. “The legendary Tom Homan.” During their interview, Kirk declared that “we need to get rid of birthright citizenship” and claimed that “the legal Hispanics” support mass deportation. (A Gallup poll from July 11 found 91% of Hispanic Americans support a pathway to citizenship, and only 23% support deporting all immigrants without legal status.)}:

Alligator Alcatraz didn’t come up during a July 11 interview on Fox & Friends or a July 16 interview on Hannity. Newsmax host Rob Schmitt also failed to bring up the facility in his interview with Homan, though he began the segment by accusing the administration’s opponents of throwing “every possible sob story at you guys.”

On July 18, Fox Business guest host Cheryl Casone began her interview with Homan by asking about the administration’s stated goal of reopening Alcatraz prison in San Francisco as a migrant detention center before shifting her focus to its namesake in southern Florida, suggesting it might serve as a template for other states.

“What do you make of this idea of these other states that could do something similar to what they’ve done in Florida, which is Alligator Alcatraz,” Casone said. “I mean, this facility was created very quickly, and many lawmakers have been down there. They said that it is safe. You know, all of these Democrats yelling and saying it was going to be dangerous — it’s not.”

Video

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From the July 18, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings With Maria Bartiromo

That was the same day that Fox News’ Faulkner blessed Homan at the end of her interview. Alligator Alcatraz went unmentioned.

Homan was back on Hannity on July 21, during which the eponymous host asked him three questions, all of which centered on — and inflated — the risk of so-called migrant crime. Two days later, Homan was on another Fox prime-time show, this time The Ingraham Angle, appearing over a chyron that read: “Illegals’ reign of terror.”

Video

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From the July 23, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

The next afternoon on America Reports, Roberts’ questions again gave Homan a chance to criticize sanctuary city policies. The anchor concluded the segment by reminding his audience that Homan had “vowed to flood the zone there in New York City” with ICE agents.

On July 29, Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones framed Homan and ICE as dispassionately following the law. “There’s laws on the books you guys have to enforce,” Jones said, adding later, “You don’t get to selectively enforce when a judge has signed an order, right?” (The Washington Post found that the second Trump administration has defied more than 1 in 3 judicial rulings, including in high-profile cases regarding immigration and deportation.)

Homan uses right-wing media to spread false talking point that 70% of ICE arrestees are criminals, the rest are “national security threats”

A closer look at one of Homan’s latest talking points helps illustrate how the right-wing media ecosystem seeks to bolster support for Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

In the July 29 Fox & Friends interview, Homan claimed that “70% of the people we are arresting are criminals. Hard stop: 70%.”

“Who are the other 30%?” Homan continued. “The other 30% are national security threats.”

He reiterated later: “We’re arresting 70% criminals, and the rest are national security threats and those with final orders.”

Homan didn’t offer a citation for those figures, and Jones didn’t ask for one. Neither did NewsNation anchor Markie Martin, who interviewed Homan the same morning.

Video

Citation

From the July 29, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

“Seventy percent of everybody we arrest is a criminal,” Homan repeated later that day on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime. “Who is the other 30%? National security threats, final orders of deportation, gang members.”

Note the rhetorical slippage, as Homan moves from an unequivocal statement that 30% of people detained by ICE are national security threats to squishier phrasing that also includes immigrants with an order of deportation.

Over the next 48 hours, Homan made nearly identical versions of the claim on Newsmax’s The National Report, Fox Business’ Varney & Co., and OAN’s Real America with Dan Ball. None of these programs offered even mild pushback, much less the full debunking the claim deserves.

Homan’s first claim that 70% of ICE arrestees are criminals appears to have first been used in a Department of Homeland Security press release from June 26, which quoted DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin as saying: “Under the Trump Administration 70% of illegal aliens arrested have been convicted or charged with a crime beyond illegally entering our country.” The figure has been included in at least seven subsequent releases.

Even granting Homan the benefit of the doubt in his failure to distinguish between a criminal conviction and a charge, the DHS stat appears to be incorrect, according to media reports and other independent sources that cite ICE’s own data.

On June 24, CBS News reported that “federal statistics show nearly half — or 47% — of those currently detained by ICE lack a criminal record and fewer than 30% have been convicted of crimes.”

The Associated Press, citing ICE data, reported that “as of June 29, there were 57,861 people detained by ICE, 41,495 — 71.7% — of whom had no criminal convictions.” Of that subset, 14,318 people had pending criminal charges, meaning that about 53% of arrestees either had a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges.

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which collects government data, 24% of ICE detainees were facing criminal charges as of July 13 and 28% had a criminal conviction, though TRAC adds: “Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations.”

Even the scant evidence in the public record that purports to bolster Homan’s claim undercuts the Trump administration’s larger argument that it’s targeting the so-called worst of the worst.

On July 16, CBS News reported that “of the estimated 100,000 people who were deported between January 1 and June 24 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 70,583 were convicted criminals, according to an ICE document” obtained by the network — though “most of the documented infractions were traffic or immigration offenses.” (It’s not clear what accounts for the discrepancy between the CBS News report and other publicly available data.)

As to Homan’s second claim that the remaining 30% of ICE arrestees are “national security threats,” it appears to be the product of the Trump border czar’s own imagination. The statistic doesn’t appear in any DHS press releases from this year, and doesn’t seem to exist in the public domain beyond Homan’s own claim. Although Homan occasionally tempers his talking point by including people with removal orders, the message to conservative audiences is clear, as illustrated by the NewsNation headline: “Border czar says ICE arrests include 70% criminals, 30% threats.”

Citation

From an article published on NewsNation on 7/29/25

Using TRAC’s most recent numbers, ICE is holding 56,816 people — meaning that by Homan’s reasoning, more than 17,000 are national security threats. By contrast, the July 16 CBS News report found that “3,256 of the more than 100,000 people removed were known or suspected gang members or terrorists,” which is roughly 3%. (Databases that purport to list terrorists and “gang members” are also notoriously inaccurate and filled with false positives and other errors.)

Homan’s baseless assertion that 30% of ICE arrestees are national security threats — including people who simply have an order of removal — functions as a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that won’t be challenged in right-wing media. The Trump administration has absurdly claimed that unauthorized migration amounts to an “invasion.” Working backwards from there, Homan apparently concludes that any person in the United States without legal status is therefore a matter of national security.

This hall of mirrors, where regular people going about their lives are transformed into violent threats to community safety, inverts the actual dynamics at play. Right-wing outlets that serve as platforms for Homan to demonize immigrants are actually putting communities at risk, and now their coverage has helped lay the foundations for ICE and the Florida Division of Emergency Management to open a remote detention camp in southern Florida rife with abuse.

Cascading reports of horrific conditions at “Alligator Alcatraz”

Right-wing media have amplified Homan’s fearmongering even as they have largely ignored or downplayed the harms ICE is causing throughout the country, as embodied most viscerally at Alligator Alcatraz. That campaign of ignorance notwithstanding, the public has had access to horror stories from the southern Florida facility virtually from its first hours of operation.

Officials began holding people at the facility on July 2, and by July 4 reports of harsh living conditions were already starting to emerge. NBC 6 Miami reported the encampment faced swarms of mosquitos, heavy downpours, and high temperatures, all of which were standard fare for the remote area of southern Florida. The outlet later spoke with a detained man who said there was “no water here to bathe,” that the fluorescent lights were always on, and that the food, which detainees were given once a day, “has worms in it.” Another person held there had been denied his medication.

On July 9, The Miami Herald published a lengthy investigation into Alligator Alcatraz, reporting that detainees had no access to showers or water with which to flush the toilets, that giant bugs had breached the tent walls, and that temperatures whipsawed between freezing cold and swelteringly hot. Many of those details were subsequently confirmed by The Associated Press, which added that there were “flooding floors with fecal waste,” and The Washington Post, which reported that some detainees had been “shackled to a bench.”

Conditions only deteriorated from there. On July 22, NBC News reported a man held at the facility had developed fungus on his feet from the standing water and overall poor sanitation. The same day, The Guardian cited immigration advocates who claimed at least six people sent to the facility had been hospitalized. WLRN Public Media spoke on the phone to a migrant in the camp, who said guards “chained me to the ground,” forced him to stand in the sun without water from 1-7 p.m., and “called him the n-word.”

Lawyers and immigration advocates for the detainees have sued in federal court, alleging that the Trump administration and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have created a legal black hole where the ultimate jurisdiction for the facility is deliberately opaque. “This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” the plaintiffs argued. Detainees there have reportedly gone on hunger strike, though DHS denies the claim. Videos show ambulances entering and leaving the facility repeatedly over the course of several days.

In short, Alligator Allcatraz is operating as an extrajudicial concentration camp designed to disappear and punish immigrants largely outside formal legal processes. If Tom Homan and his MAGA media allies have their way, it won’t be the last. DeSantis has already suggested his state will soon unveil a second detention camp, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the government is looking to open similar facilities in Arizona, Nebraska, and Louisiana. On August 5, Noem announced a second camp would be opened in Indiana, dubbed the “Speedway Slammer.”

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AN 8 25

For many years, Florida was considered a volatile swing state that, depending on the candidate, could go either Democrat or Republican in statewide races. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both carried Florida twice, and in the state's 2018 gubernatorial race, Democratic former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum just barely lost to Republican now-Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But since then, Florida has taken a deep-red turn. DeSantis ran as a far-right culture warrior in 2022 and was reelected by 19 percent; Donald Trump carried Florida by roughly 14 percent in 2024. And Florida has become a bastion of MAGA politics, from DeSantis to conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer to Sen. Rick Scott to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (Florida's former state attorney general) to Trump himself.

In an article published by The Guardian on August 6, journalist Oliver Laughland describes a 400-mile journey across Florida —where he took a close look at the state's MAGA machine.

Laughland describes a Turning Point USA event at the Tampa Convention Center, where, in July, a who's-who of MAGA — including British comedian Russell Brand — could be found and "conspiracy theories, grievance politics and Christian nationalism" were on full display.

IFrame Content

"Ahead of me, Russell Brand sits on a white sofa, broadcasting live on the conservative video-streaming service Rumble," Laughland explains. "His guest is the 'alt-right' influencer Jack Posobiec. To the left, along an alleyway lined with small broadcast booths, is the longtime Donald Trump adviser and self-proclaimed 'dirty trickster' Roger Stone, who is holding court on a podcast. To the rear, on a large metal scaffold, is Steve Bannon’s 'War Room' channel, busy cutting between live footage of a small protest outside the event and adverts for various Trump-aligned products….. In the arena next to the mezzanine, a conveyor belt of MAGA superstars walk out to deliver keynote speeches, accompanied by spitting-flame cannon, pounding dubstep, spinning lasers and strobe lights."

Laughland continues, "Brand delivers a bizarre diatribe — part standup comedy, part evangelical sermon — about his newfound conversion to Christianity in a word salad of alliteration and non sequiturs…. He is immediately followed by Tom Homan, Trump’s loudmouth border czar."

But that Turning Point USA event in Tampa was only one of the MAGA-related things Laughland observed in Florida. Four hours south of Tampa, he notes, is the "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center. And Palm Beach is home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago, home to countless MAGA events.

"My colleague Tom Silverstone and I came here as the first stop on a journey across…. Florida," Laughland notes. "Once the quintessential swing state, it is now solidly Republican — and home to some of the president's vast sources of personal wealth, including his beach club, Mar-a-Lago. It is also one of the hubs of his mass‑deportation program."

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HOMAN REV DOOR

[### Trump's border czar consulted for immigrant detention firm ...

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › business › 2025/05/27](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/05/27/border-czar-ethics-consulting-fees/)

May 27, 2025 — Newly released disclosure shows Tom Homan previously consulted for the Geo Group, a key contractor in the administration's mass deportation agenda.

[### Tom Homan's financial ties to private prison locking up ...

MSNBC News

https://www.msnbc.com › top-stories › latest › trump-b...](https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-border-tom-homan-private-prison-immigrants-rcna209544)

May 28, 2025 — Before he joined the administration, border czar Tom Homan earned an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the Geo Group, one ...

[### Trump Border Czar Tom Homan's Cash-In With Key ICE ...

The Daily Beast

https://www.thedailybeast.com › trumps-border-czar-tom...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-border-czar-tom-homan-profited-from-top-ice-contractor-before-white-house-gig/)

May 27, 2025 — Prior to leading Trump's mass deportation push, Homan collected consulting fees from the GEO Group—one of two companies that run a majority of ...

[### Tom Homan

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Tom_Homan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Homan)

Homan received at least $5,000 in consulting fees from GEO Group in the two years before he joined the second Trump administration. GEO Group is ...

[### NowThis - Georgia has struck a deal with the private prison ...

Facebook · NowThis Impact

9.9K+ reactions · 3 weeks ago](https://m.facebook.com/nowthisimpact/photos/georgia-has-struck-a-deal-with-the-private-prison-firm-geo-group-inc-to-create-t/1126975842800912/)

Georgia has struck a deal with the private prison firm Geo Group Inc. to create the nation's largest facility specifically for ICE detainees.

[### Private Prison Giant Hired ICE Detention Chief

Project On Government Oversight (POGO)

https://www.pogo.org › Investigations](https://www.pogo.org/investigations/private-prison-giant-hired-ice-detention-chief)

Jan 17, 2025 — A top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official left to take a senior job at The GEO Group, a private prison company and the agency's top contractor.

[### Tom Homan's financial ties to private prison locking up ...

Yahoo

https://www.yahoo.com › news › tom-homans-financial...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/tom-homans-financial-ties-private-210908616.html)

May 28, 2025 — Before he joined the administration, border czar Tom Homan earned an undisclosed amount in fees consulting for a division of the Geo Group, one ...

[### Trump's Border Czar Recently Consulted for Immigrant ...

Truthout

https://truthout.org › Articles › News](https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-border-czar-recently-consulted-for-immigrant-detention-center-operator/)

May 28, 2025 — Tom Homan disclosed consulting fees from GEO Group, one of the largest immigrant jail operators in the US.

[### May 1, 2025 David Donahue Chief Executive Officer The GEO ...

Senate Committee on the Judiciary (.gov)

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov › media › doc](https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2025-05-01%20Letter%20to%20GEO%20Group.pdf)

PDF

May 1, 2025 — ... GEO Group, Press Release, The GEO Group. Awarded 15-Year Contract by ... ”14 Tom Homan, President. Trump's Executive Associate Director ...

5 pages

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rww

06/09/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: Trump Says His Border Czar Should Arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom

President Donald Trump weighed in Monday on the war of words between his Border Czar Tom Homan and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D).

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Pointing to protesters, but not ICE agents, Trump demands arrests of those in masks

The president wants protesters in masks to be taken into custody, but immigration enforcement agents in masks are apparently fine.

Freddy Gray @ The Spectator: Bannon on LA riots: ‘We’re in World War Three’

It’s all war all the time inside Steve Bannon’s War Room in Capitol Hill. “We’re in the Third World War,” he tells me. “And it’s a battlefield that’s everywhere, including in downtown Los Angeles.” The weekend’s riots in LA, he insists, are part of an orchestrated push by nefarious forces in America to stoke civil unrest in America.

Jason Campbell @ Media Matters: While calling for the military to be deployed to Los Angeles, Charlie Kirk uses a chart sourced to a white nationalist website

During his June 9 broadcast, Charlie Kirk used a chart sourced to the white nationalist organization American Renaissance.

Frederick Clarkson @ Religion Dispatches: Praying for God to Snuff Out Judges in the Name of Revival

When the events of January 6th roared into US history, many in the crowds that stormed the Capitol that day hoisted an unusual flag like it was the Jolly Roger. While the Appeal to Heaven flag, a green pine tree on a field of white, was originally used during the American Revolution, in recent years it’s been repurposed as the de facto battle flag of the neo-Charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. And the man primarily responsible for this transformation is a leader of this dynamic movement, Apostle Dutch Sheets of South Carolina.

Ewan Palmer @ The Daily Beast: Musk Is Back to Boosting Trump After the President’s Bombshell Threat

The tech billionaire is backing Trump’s response to the clashes between protesters and immigration officials in Los Angeles.

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ref gothamist

In a dramatic incident captured on video, U.S. Department of Homeland Security police Wednesday handcuffed one of Rep. Jerry Nadler aides in the congressmember's Manhattan office, which is in the same federal office building as an immigration courthouse.

In the video, which was shared with Gothamist and filmed by a person who was monitoring activity in immigration court, DHS officers entered Nadler’s district office and accused staff members of “harboring rioters.” A Nadler staffer is seen crying and being handcuffed. Another officer is at a door trying to enter a private area of the office while a staffer asks for a warrant.

DHS later said in a statement that “one individual” — the woman seen being handcuffed — had blocked police from performing a security check they intended to do based on information there were protesters in the lawmaker’s office. Later that day, protesters gathered outside of the federal building, demonstrating against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. [vid]

The staff member was not arrested and not charged with any crime, both Nadler's office and a DHS spokesperson confirmed. In a brief telephone interview, the staffer who'd been handcuffed said that “everything resolved” and declined to comment further.

Initially, Nadler’s office would not comment on what led up to the chaotic incident. But after Gothamist broke the story Friday, the congressman posted a statement on X.

“While no arrests were made and the situation was quickly deescalated, I am alarmed by the aggressive and heavy-handed tactics DHS is employing in New York City and across the country," the statement said. "The decision to enter a congressional office and detain a staff member demonstrates a deeply troubling disregard for proper legal boundaries."

Two people who were at the courthouse to monitor ICE activity said the confrontation came after ICE officers threatened to arrest them and other advocates, and a Nadler staffer invited the advocates inside.

Nadler’s office is on the sixth floor in the same Varick Street building as federal immigration court, which is on the fifth floor. The building also houses DHS and other federal offices.

{Last week, Robert Gottheim, Nadler’s co-chief of staff, confirmed there was no arrest but otherwise declined to comment on the unusual event that resulted in federal agents entering the office of a Democratic member of Congress, accusing office staffers of criminal wrongdoing and handcuffing a staffer.}:

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between Democratic lawmakers and the executive branch over federal immigration enforcement, including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver arrests earlier this month in connection with protests outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark.

There have been an increasing number of arrests at immigration courthouses across the country in recent days. The Trump administration, promising the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history, announced in January it would no longer treat venues such as courthouses and schools as “protected” sites off-limits to immigration enforcement.

At another immigration courthouse in the city, at 290 Broadway, ICE officers last week arrested a 20-year-old Bronx high school student after an immigration judge dismissed the student’s pending deportation case. The student, from Venezuela, is the first New York City public school student to be detained by ICE during Trump’s second term, according to the city education department.

Hours after the confrontation involving the Nadler staffers and DHS police, around 6:30 p.m., police arrested nearly two dozen demonstrators they allege blocked traffic outside the building, an NYPD spokesperson said.

In the demonstration, mutual aid volunteers assisting immigrants tried to block ICE vans transporting detained immigrants from leaving the building, according to organizers. Eighteen protesters were issued criminal summons, and five people were arrested and charged, the NYPD spokesperson said.

In the video of the confrontation at Nadler’s office, the handcuffed staff member says that there were constituents present in the office for a meeting. Those constituents later identified themselves in interviews with Gothamist as immigrant rights advocates monitoring activities in the building, including outside the federal immigration courtrooms.

The video does not capture any interactions between Nadler’s staff and DHS police before the staffer was handcuffed. But two advocates who were present as the events unfolded described officers questioning people as they left immigration court and threatening advocates as they intervened. Both people asked Gothamist not to use their names, saying they fear retaliation by the federal government.

The advocates said they were outside an immigration courtroom where plainclothes ICE officers were questioning people as they were leaving their court appearances. The advocates said they were advising the immigrants of their rights. The officers, in turn, threatened the advocates with arrest for loitering, according to the two advocates who spoke with Gothamist.

According to the two advocates, ICE officers then arrested one of the advocates in the courthouse; DHS did not respond to further inquiries about what transpired. Then, the two advocates said, a Nadler staffer invited them and a third advocate up to the lawmaker’s office, which is on the floor above the courthouse. They were there for about 20 minutes before the DHS police entered, the two advocates said.

An officer is heard in the video of the encounter claiming the handcuffed Nadler aide, seen crying, had pushed a DHS officer. Another officer is also seen entering an area of the lawmaker’s office, over the objections of a Nadler aide, who asked for a warrant before acceding to the demand.

The advocates said they did not witness any staff member pushing a DHS officer. They said the aide who was handcuffed had declined the officer entry to a more private part of the office. The courthouse as well as the government offices are generally open to the public.

The video shows the handcuffed staff member asking officers, “What’s your problem?” She adds, without further clarifying, “They’re here for a meeting. They’re constituents.”

A DHS officer urged her, “Do not resist. Stop resisting.”

The DHS statement on Thursday made no mention of Nadler’s office harboring rioters, as the DHS officer claims in the video. Thursday’s statement said that DHS officers were responding to information that protesters were inside Nadler’s office. Out of concern for Nadler’s employees, the statement said, the officers went to the lawmaker’s office “to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those present.”

The statement said the officers “were granted entry and encountered four individuals,” but did not specify who the four were. After stating their intent to conduct a “security check,” the statement said, one of the individuals became “confrontational and physically blocked” access to the office and had to be detained in the hallway in the federal building. But the statement says that no arrests were made and all “were released without further incident.”

*Ben Feuerherd contributed reporting.

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MMA # 1 FOX GUEST

Published 02/21/25 10:23 AM EST

Top Trump administration officials have appeared on Fox News 124 times since President Donald Trump was sworn in. At least one key nominated or appointed official appeared nearly every day of the past month.

Trump's “border czar,” Thomas Homan, has been the most prominent administration official on the network, appearing 20 times in total, on over half of the days of the month. Counselor to the president Alina Habba (15 appearances), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (12), and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller (11) were also prominently featured....

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AN 6 25

During his first presidency, Donald Trump spent a lot of time fighting with conservative appointees who resisted parts of his agenda — from John Bolton (national security adviser) to Jeff Sessions (U.S. attorney general) to Rex Tillerson (secretary of state) to Gen. John F. Kelly (White House chief of staff). Trump's third White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, even ended up endorsing presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

But Trump's second presidency is much different. This time, he made a point of surrounding himself with hardcore MAGA loyalists—who, the Washington Post's Philip Bump argues in his June 2 column, are making a concerted effort to bully and intimidate opponents and create a climate of fear.

Trump, Bump warns, has a "range of dishonest actors" at his disposal. And they range from White House adviser Stephen Miller to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem to immigration czar Tom Homan.

"What President Donald Trump wants is to put big deportation numbers on the scoreboard," Bump explains. "Recent reporting suggests that senior administration officials, including adviser Stephen Miller, are leaning on DHS to remove more people, faster. Trump’s 2024 campaign promised to focus on removing the massive population of criminal undocumented immigrants in the U.S. But, in part because his claims about the scale of the problem have consistently been hyperbolic, the (Trump) Administration is instead resorting to deporting just about anyone it can conceivably fit into the system."

IFrame Content

Bump notes that the intimidation tactics of Trump and his allies range from the arrests of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-New Jersey) and Judge Hannah Dugan to DHS agents accusing Rep. Jerry Nadler's (D-New York) staff of "harboring rioters" and even handcuffing a Nadler staffer.

"In San Diego," Bump observes, "heavily armed immigration officers conducted a raid at a restaurant. When observers attempted to halt the arrests, the federal agents allegedly used a stun grenade against the crowd. That incident was perhaps the most extreme of a number of tense, aggressive encounters between immigration officials and the public over the past four months…. It also seems clear that some agents understand they won’t be held accountable for their actions."

Bump adds, "Detaining a staffer in member of Congress' office in search of 'rioters' from a nonexistent riot doesn't comport with a liberal democracy."

Nadler told the New York Times, "The Trump Administration is really using totalitarian or even authoritarian practices. We have to fight them. We don't want to be a fascist country."

Bump laments, "This is the reality. Immigrants are cast as dangerous when they aren't. Governmental power is abused without accountability. All of it at Trump’s whim — very much to Nadler's 'authoritarian' point."

*Philip Bump's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required)

---

an 2 25

concerns are growing after President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, announced he has requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate whether U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) violated federal law by hosting a webinar informing undocumented immigrants of their civil rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Calling Homan’s remarks “extremely disturbing,” civil rights attorney and longtime public defender Scott Hechinger wrote: “There is nothing more unconstitutional than threatening to punish someone for sharing information about the Constitution.”

And in a video, he added that what Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is doing is “nothing more than sharing rights, knowledge of rights, knowledge of the Constitution with her immigrant constituents.”

“There is nothing more constitutional than sharing education about the Constitution,” he said. And he declared that the “bottom line is that this is a tactic of fear. This is a tactic of terror.”

“They’re not only coming for our immigrant neighbors, they’re coming for all of us, and they’re coming for all of us for simply sharing what the Constitution says, because knowledge they know is power, and they want to maintain full and unadulterated power over all of us.”

“What they’re doing by even suggesting that AOC’s conduct or any of our conduct related to sharing rights is illegal in some way, is illegal. It’s unconstitutional. It’s suppression of speech, it’s suppression of truth, and it’s not okay.”

Homan told Fox News on Monday, “I’ve asked DOJ, where where’s that line of impedment?” he said repeatedly, appearing to mean “impediment.”

“Now if someone stands in your way, prevents you from arresting somebody, put your hands on him, that’s impedment.”

“So I’ve simply Department of Justice, give us that line,” he said, claiming he finds it “disturbing” that “any member of Congress wants to educate people how they evade law enforcement.”

“What she in fact is doing is telling people, ‘don’t open your door,’ ‘hide in your home’, ‘don’t talk to ICE,'” Homan said. “We’re talking about people who are in the country illegally, committed a crime, they’re a public safety threat, they’ve been convicted of serious crime, and they’ve been ordered removed by federal judge. So it’s like AOC and others don’t want ICE to enforce the laws that they enacted.”

But ICE is not only arresting undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of serious crime, they are also, according to reports, arresting Americans.

“American citizens, including citizens of Native tribal nations, have been pulled intothe vastimmigrationoperations ordered by President Donald Trumpin accordance with his campaign vow to conduct mass deportations since Day 1,” NBC News reported late last month. “Those who are getting caught in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids are being targeted because of their race or skin color, according to witnesses.”

Homan’s repeated presence on Fox News may also indicate that his public relations efforts are taking precedence, since ICE has not been able to find enough undocumented immigrants to arrest to meet their alleged quotas.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling to arrest higher numbers of immigrants and falling far short of the administration’s goals,” The Washington Post reported over the weekend. “ICE arrests have sagged so far this month, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, declining from about 800 per day in late January after Trump took office to fewer than 600 during the first 13 days of February. The administration has stopped publishing daily numbers, and Trump officials said they will release the data on a monthly basis to conserve resources.”

Last week, Homan made essentially the same remarks, also on Fox News. He added, “I’m working with the Department of Justice and finding out. Where is that line that they cross? So maybe AOC is going to be in trouble now.”

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez quickly mocked him.

IFrame Content

In a statement to Fox News AOC also said, “I am glad Mr. Homan is checking with the Department of Justice to familiarize himself with the limits of his agency’s authority in entering the homes of everyday Americans without a warrant. And I am proud to offer civil education to everyday Americans to ensure ICE’s compliance with the law, given the numerous reports of agents providing incorrect paperwork in their attempts to enter and search private homes.”

“Since Mr. Homan seems to be vaguely familiar with U.S. immigration law, we also remind him that according to Congressional statute, becoming undocumented in the United States is a civil offense and not a criminal one. I look forward to continuing our work in ensuring the safety of everyday New Yorkers while keeping families together.”[twts]

A really bizarre aspect of the second Trump administration and its extreme actions is its choice of the face of its immigration policies—and now other policies too.

That face is Stephen Miller’s, a man who offers loud, hateful bromides to the media, all of which you expect to end with, “Heil Hitler!” This guy is pure evil, salivating over “deporting” brown-skinned 4-year-old American citizens with stage-four cancer.

And now they’re putting him out front on tariffs too, and government funding. It makes no sense—but I’m here for it!

This morning he turned up for a White House press briefing, a wannabe Joseph Goebbels, commanding, “"Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values.”

Here we have Trump collapsing in the polls, with the worst approval numbers of any president in history in his first 100 days. And as I wrote, it’s a perfect opportunity for Democrats to kick him while he’s down. For the GOP, it’s a potential political wipeout in the making, as Americans are waking up to what is happening.

IFrame Content

A poll conducted by the widely respected Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority of Americans now believe Trump is a “dangerous dictator.”

Seriously. When asked if they agree Trump is "a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy," 52% said yes.

But even more startling,17% of Republicans agree with it.

That means a bunch of people who voted for Trump now think he’s a dangerous dictator who should be stopped, which, even if only partially accurate, is a five-alarm fire for Republicans in Congress going into the mid-terms.

Most of those who backed Trump say it was because of the economy and immigration, which were Trump’s strengths. But the tariffs and the brutal deportations of people who committed no crimes, sent to a torture prison overseas or elsewhere, have sent Trump’s numbers into a nosedive.

Faced with the polling plummeting on those issues and the majority believing Trump is a dictator, you’d think they’d turn to the many smiling, robotic blonde women they have as officials—though, admittedly, Pam Bondi is pretty scary. But they’re putting the grating and horror-movie-ready Miller—a guy who looks like a defendant at the Nuremberg trials—out to defend a president now believed to be a dictator by most Americans.

And, at least on immigration, when it’s not Miller it’s the really creepy-looking Tom Homan, the so-called border czar, who talks like he has marbles in his mouth and looks like he gives off the scent of three-day-old clothes and cheap bourbon.

Sure, Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro and RFK Jr. are no day at the beach, off the rails and batty as all hell in their beliefs, as are many others in the administration. But you literally cannot understand what Tom Homan is saying half of the time as he gobbles up his own words and slurs on national television.

And the half you do understand is his saying that he and Trump will defy judges and court orders and round up whoever they decide is a “terrorist”—which appears to be every undocumented immigrant and even some American citizens—based on absolutely no solid proof and with no due process.

Between Homan and Miller, the Trump administration is only reinforcing that on immigration they are engaging in violent, lawless actions against people, clearly intending to traumatize the targets and terrorize everyone.

It shows how much power Miller has amassed—because you know there are those in the administration who must loathe him—and how out of touch Trump is to make them the face of policies he’s cratering on. But hey, bring it on.

an 2 25

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday dared Trump immigration czar Tom Homan to pursue an investigation against her after he attacked the New York Democrat in two television appearances and said he has asked the Justice Department to "look into" whether she violated the law by holding a webinar informing constituents of their rights.

"This is why you fight these cowards. The moment you stand up to them, they crumble," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media after Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), called her "the dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress" in an interview on the far-right network Newsmax.

The resort to a personal attack, said the New York Democrat, shows that "Homan has nothing."

"The Fourth Amendment is clear and I am well within my duties to educate people of their rights," she added. "He can threaten me with jail and call names all he wants. He's got nothing else."

Less than an hour later, Ocasio-Cortez wrote "go ahead" in response to a separate interview in which Homan told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he has asked the deputy attorney general to examine whether the New York congresswoman's webinar amounted to teaching people "how to evade ICE arrest."

"Let the people see you for what you are," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in response.

Homan, whom President Donald Trump has tasked with spearheading the new administration's mass deportation efforts, has repeatedly attacked Ocasio-Cortez in recent days as the White House zeroes in on New York City with the help of disgraced Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, the beneficiary of an out-in-the-open quid pro quo arrangement that is now at the center of a legal and political controversy.

On her congressional website, Ocasio-Cortez—who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens—has a page devoted to informing her constituents of their legal rights when faced with ICE agents.

"ICE does not have the right to enter your home without a valid warrant signed by a judge," reads a flyer produced by Ocasio-Cortez's office, a message that was echoed during last week's webinar.

Days after the webinar, Homan said in a Fox News appearance that he "sent an email" to the deputy attorney general asking whether Ocasio-Cortez is illegally "impeding our law enforcement efforts."

"Maybe he can learn to read," the New York Democrat wrote in response. "The Constitution would be a good place to start."

an 2 25

7 usag resign fedsoc scalia clerk

will be up adams butt

'Brazen criminality': Allegations of 'quid pro quo' fly after border czar’s admission

===

vigilante militia?

mma

January 14, 2025, edition of Rose Unplugged, streamed on Rumble

TOM HOMAN (INCOMING TRUMP “BORDER CZAR”): So, look, we got a lot of people to find, and we got to find them. And we're going to do it. And — but I'm telling you right now, it's going to be hard. So that's why we're — especially with children, we're going to bring in some private sector organizations that work trafficking on their own.

We're also going to count on the American people. We have to deputize every American citizen, especially parents, right? Parents have an innate ability to recognize when something's not right with a child. So we want people who look and pay attention. If you see something, say something, and make a phone call from a provided 1-800 number. And, look, if even if one out of every hundred phone calls turn up that a child is being abused, that's one child we can save. So we're going to count on the American people to step up for this thing too. So that's something — you know, bring in the private sector is going to be great because I think every American citizen is sick over this issue. I think they're all going to volunteer to step in and do what they can do to help us.

// nola attack by vet citizen

mma

As media figures, Trump picks Homan, Waltz, and Bondi have repeatedly spread fear about ISIS crossing the southern border

01/06/25

===

---

an 11 24

As a candidate, Donald Trump insisted he knew nothing about the far-right Heritage Foundation's authoritarian Project 2025 playbook. But as president-elect, Trump is appointing some of its authors to powerful positions in his Cabinet.

On Friday, Trump confirmed previous reports that he would be appointing Russell Vought – president of the Center for Renewing America (CRA) — to be his next director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought served in that role in Trump's first administration, and is likely to bring back Trump's controversial "Schedule F" executive order that would make it easier for a president to fire tens of thousands of federal civil service workers and replace them with political loyalists.

After leaving the Trump White House, Vought founded the CRA, which was one of the key partner organizations backing Project 2025. In August, two undercover journalists got Vought to admit in a hidden camera interview that Trump's rhetoric distancing himself from Project 2025 was just for show, and that he has secretly "blessed it" and was "very supportive" of the plan.

As Agence France-Presse journalist Bill McCarthy noted in a Friday tweet, Vought is just the latest Project 2025 contributor to join the Trump Cabinet. Brendan Carr, who Trump nominated to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authored the section of Project 2025 that specifically dealt with the FCC.

Other Project 2025 contributors taking key roles in the Trump administration include Michigan Republican Party chair Pete Hoekstra — who was tapped to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Canada — and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who the president-elect has since nominated to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Tom Homan, who will be Trump's new border czar, is also listed as a contributor to Project 2025.

Homan's contributions were likely concentrated among Project 2025's recommendations for reforming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). That section, which was chiefly written by former Trump DHS official Ken Cuccinelli, called for rapidly expanding the DHS' staff and consolidating various border enforcement agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to be under one umbrella. At a far-right conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this summer, Homan — who was Trump's ICE chief in his first administration — promised that if he were given a position within the Trump administration, he would assemble "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen."

“They ain’t seen s— yet. Wait until 2025," Homan said at the National Conservatism conference.

During the 2024 election cycle, Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly sought to associate Project 2025 with Trump, causing the Republican nominee to repeatedly distance himself from it on the campaign stump due to the document's overwhelming unpopularity. Notably, Trump transition co-chairman Howard Lutnick — who Trump selected to head the U.S. Department of Commerce — promised to blacklist anyone linked to Project 2025 from serving in his second administration, calling the Heritage Foundation and its sweeping policy document "radioactive."

Trump keeping Project 2025 at arms' length didn't pass muster, however, with CNN finding that more than 140 of Trump's former advisors and staffers helped assemble the document. Heritage itself has also heavily promoted its close relationship with Trump on its website and in its fundraising materials, pointing out that in his first year as president he implemented roughly two-thirds of their policy recommendations.

"President Trump addressed a group of Heritage members. He confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is on our side," a 2017 email from Heritage read.

In June, People magazine published a comprehensive report delving into Project 2025, calling it a "far-right, Christian nationalist vision for America that would corrode the separation of church and state, replace nonpartisan government employees with Trump loyalists and bolster the president's authority over independent agencies."

---

===

mma

the Trump administration is planning on deporting millions and millions of immigrants. Fox News is pretending the focus will be much narrower.

“Border Czar” Tom Homan: “If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder. The bottom line is: Every illegal alien is a criminal.”

Written by Charis Hoard, Torri Lonergan, Pete Tsipis & Chloe Simon

Published 11/18/24

Fox News is downplaying President-elect Donald Trump’s planned “mass deportations” by saying the effort will prioritize migrants with “criminal records.” But two of his top picks to oversee immigration policy have echoed what he and the vice president-elect have threatened: The deportations will include all undocumented immigrants in addition to migrants here legally and mixed-status families.

Trump has announced that his former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, Tom Homan, will oversee immigration policy in his second administration and his former senior adviser Stephen Miller will serve as his deputy chief of staff on policy. Both Homan and Miller have expressed support for Trump’s plan to enact mass deportations of immigrants from the United States, with Miller recently proclaiming at a Trump rally that America is for “Americans only.”

## Tom Homan and Stephen Miller have experience enforcing draconian immigration policy for Trump and plan to further his agenda in the second term

- Trump has pledged to deport all undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants as well.This policy could impact more than 22 million people who live in the country's 5.8 million mixed-status families, where one or more family members are undocumented. The mass deportations could also target the 530,000 people who are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offered protections for “young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, temporarily shielding them from deportation and providing them work authorization with possible renewal every two years.” The Guardian [11/8/24; Pew Research Center, 7/22/24; Poynter, 11/13/24; Immigration Forum, 5/21/24; Media Matters, 11/15/24]

- As part of his deportation agenda, Trump is expected to end an asylum parole program for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela which allowed “qualified nationals” to apply for temporary stay in the U.S. if they were sponsored by someone who had U.S. citizenship or legal status. Trump is also expected to begin his plans of mass deportation in his first 100 days in office, and he has backed calls for a “national emergency” plan to secure military resources to carry out the mass deportations. Global Refuge, [10/23/24; Politico, 11/18/24; Newsweek, 11/18/24]

- During a campaign rally, Vice President-elect JD Vance said, “Our message to illegal aliens is, ‘Pack your bags, because in four months you’re going home.’”Vance has also cast doubt on the status of legal migrants, calling thousands of Haitians who are in the United States legally “illegal aliens” and suggesting they will be deported under Trump. YouTube,[; Cleveland.com, 9/19/24]

- Trump has named Tom Homan “border czar” for his second term.Homan served as acting director of ICE in the first Trump administration and is credited as the “intellectual father” of the Trump administration’s family separation policy; he has since stated that he didn’t “give a shit” about being sued due to the policy. Homan has long pushed anti-immigrant rhetoric and misinformation on Fox News, where he became a paid contributor in 2018. NPR, [11/11/24; Media Matters, 6/14/19, 8/8/22, 10/11/23, 8/11/19; The Hill, 3/3/23]

- Stephen Miller will be Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy in his upcoming administration. Miller served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first administration and was the architect of the administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that led to thousands of immigrant children being separated from their families. Miller also advocated for separating immigrant families going through civil court proceedings, which would have added 25,000 more immigrant children to the 3,000 who were already separated. NPR, [11/11/24; NBC News, 8/20/20; CNN, 11/11/24]

## Fox News figures and guests have claimed Trump’s policy will primarily or initially focus on undocumented people with criminal backgrounds

- Fox correspondent Griff Jenkins claimed that “border czar Tom Homan says the priority will be those with criminal records.” However, Jenkins also noted that “Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Nanette Barragán tells Fox News, ‘The president-elect has even admitted that innocent women and children could get caught up in the operations.’” Fox News, *Special Report with Bret Baie*r, [11/12/24]

- Former Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said Trump “is going to focus on those security threats, those, you know, folks with terroristic ties, those national security threats, the folks that are bringing in narcotics, and criminal aliens first” before moving to the “migrant population that we see all over this country.”Fox News, *Your World with Neil Cavuto*, [11/12/24]

- Fox anchor Dana Perino attempted to downplay mass deportations by saying that “Homan has been very clear the criminals come first,” but former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott said that “no one will be off the table.” Perino asked, “Criminals, if that's the first target for people who broke the law who are here that are violent, why wouldn't a governor like her [Massachusetts’ Maura Healey] want them out of her state?” Scott referred to the crime of “illegally coming into the U.S.” and said that “no one will be off the table, meaning that when ICE goes in to arrest those individuals and they stumble on other illegal immigrants, other crimes at the same time, agents will be able to take care of all those crimes at the same time.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 11/12/24]

- Fox host Sean Hannity talked about deporting “millions of criminal illegal immigrants,” listing “gang members, cartel members, drug dealers, people that we know are murderers and rapists, and those that are known terrorists.”He did not mention the nonviolent undocumented migrants who would be deported alongside them. Fox News, *Hannity*, [11/12/24]

- Former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker said terrorists and criminals “should expect to leave the country immediately,” dodging a question from Fox anchor Martha MacCallum about people who are “afraid that their families will be separated.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [11/12/24]

## Homan has claimed that that “no one is off the table” and that the “biggest deportation in U.S. history” is “coming soon"
- Homan has repeatedly said that the “biggest deportation in U.S. history” is “coming soon.”Homan claimed that those who “clearly” don't “qualify for asylum,” families who “arrive without authorization,” and people “sneaking in” will be deported. Twitter/X, [12/12/23, 2/1/24, 11/16/23, 12/2/23]

- When asked on60 Minuteswhether there was any way to conduct deportations without separating families, Homan stated, “Of course there is. Families can be deported together,” suggesting that legal migrants or even U.S. citizens in mixed-status families could be deported too. CBS News’ Cecilia Vega pressed Homan for specifics, asking, “So you are carrying out a targeted enforcement operation. Grandma's in the house. She's undocumented. Does she get arrested too?” Homan replied that “it depends,” saying, “Let the judge decide.” CBS News, [10/27/24]

- Homan suggested that “the vast majority” of undocumented migrants will be deported. Homan: “When you have an historic illegal immigration crisis, where millions enter the country illegally and the vast majority will be ordered removed by a judge because they either don’t show up in court or they simply don't qualify for asylum, it will result in an historic deportation operation.” Twitter/X, [11/20/23]

- Homan asserted that “nine out of 10” undocumented immigrants will “get an order of removal based on immigration court data.” Homan also claimed, “A judge orders them to be removed. We’re going to find them and we’re gonna remove them.… If there’s no consequence, we can’t fix the border. We’re going to have a consequence in the Trump administration.” Twitter/X, [11/19/23]

- On The Charlie Kirk Show, Homan claimed that “90% of these people crossing the border would not qualify for asylum” and would be “removed by a federal judge.” He continued: “So what is the option? If they stay, millions more come. We have to enforce the law, no apologies.” He also once again claimed that he will “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Salem Radio Network, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [12/18/23]

- Homan recently encouraged migrants, including noncriminals, to self-deport because “we know who you are, and we’re going to come and find you.” After he was announced as Trump’s pick for “border czar,” Homan appeared on Fox News’ Hannity and claimed, “While we’re out prioritizing the public safety threats and national security threats, if you want to self-deport, you should self-deport because, again, we know who you are, and we’re going to come and find you. … But for those others, the noncriminals, you want to self-deport, I’m all for it. Because when they self-deport, they can put their orders — everything in order – their family business, if they have homes or whatever – they can put all that in order and leave with their family all together.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [11/11/24]

- Homan claimed, “If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”While appearing at the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Fest in 2024, Homan said, “No one’s off the table. If you’re in the country illegally, it’s not OK. If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder. The bottom line is: every illegal alien is a criminal. They enter the country in violation of federal law. It's a crime to enter this country illegally.” Media Matters, [7/16/24]

## Miller has promoted “mass arrests and mass deportations,” which he said would include deporting “everyone coming and everyone Biden resettled”

- Miller has repeatedly called for mass deportations, often framing them as the opposite of Democrats' supposed “mass importation.” In February 2024, Miller said that the U.S. should “deport everyone coming and everyone Biden resettled.” Twitter/ X, 2/20/24, [2/29/24, 9/14/24, 10/6/24]

- At Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, Miller said, “America is for America and Americans only.”Politico, [10/28/24]

- During an interview, Miller suggested that the U.S. military be used to help carry out mass deportations.Miller also advocated for building mass detention facilities that “hold upwards of 50, 60, 70 thousand illegal aliens while you are waiting to send them someplace, somewhere that would be willing to accept them.” Media Matters, [9/28/24]

- Miller posted that “the only public policy solution is mass arrests and mass deportations” when retweeting a video of pro-Palestine protesters kicking a door. Miller also wrote, “One-third of NYC residents are foreign-born, so one can imagine the proportions in this mob.” Later on, Miller wrote “Mass Deportation” when retweeting a video of a pro-Palestine protest. Twitter/X, [11/11/23, 11/29/23]

* Miller suggested that the only way to avoid an Islamic State group terror attack is to deport undocumented immigrants.Miller tweeted, “Biden let ISIS terrorists into America. Now, no one can find them. Only a matter of time until they attack — unless Trump is elected to launch mass deportations.” Twitter/X, [6/26/24]

### Right-wing media are celebrating Trump’s impending mass deportations

11/15/24

### Newsmax host: “I am very excited to watch Tom Homan execute the largest deportation the world has ever seen”

11/13/24

Charlie Kirk tells Tom Homan: “I would love to meet with you privately about a communications strategy”

11/12/24

===

mma 11 24 only one?

JOE MATHEIU HOST): We had heard from the transition team that no one from Project 2025 was invited, now we’ve got Homan, that apparently was not the case. Have you talked to Donald Trump since he won?

KEVIN ROBERTS: We’ve not spoken yet but I anticipate that we will.

MATHEIU: I mean he’s got to be pretty keyed up on what Heritage is offering here. He was on the record when the team was trying to distance itself from you – I have no idea who is behind it, he put on X, I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Do you have a sense of what he likes or doesn’t like here?

ROBERTS: I think the key thing is that President Trump saw the branding as a liability in the political season but I also would anticipate moving forward that the president-elect and vice president-elect with whom we maintain great relationships will also understand that it’s the policymaking season that Heritage and all of the other groups that are a part of our project are built for.

And if they’re looking, for example as President Trump said this morning, for a plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, we know exactly where he can go for that plan. Totally up to him about whether he uses the plan.

…

All of the political calculations of the last few months which were very understandable and about which we have no hard feelings are in the past. We’re now in the policymaking season, we think this is the beginning of a golden era of conservative reform. I will say that because the work of Project 2025 represents the conservative movement, it would be very difficult for anybody to implement policies on education, on the border, on taxation, without at least consulting those ideas and people.

---

11/14/2024

Kyle Mantyla rww

Jeff Sharlet @ Religion Dispatches: Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an ‘Extremist’ by the US Military

Hegseth’s first tattoo, he says, was of a cross with a blade to represent Matthew 10:34, a cherry-picked vision of Jesus-as-warrior popular with Christian nationalists: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” On his chest he’s had inked a “Jerusalem cross”—a symbol of the crusaders’ holy war against Muslims and Jews.

Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque @ The Bulwark: What’s the Deal With Pete Hegseth’s Crusader Tattoos?

Donald Trump’s potential secretary of defense hasn’t been straightforward about the violent symbolism of his ink.

Hunter Walker @ Talking Points Memo: Trump’s Pick For Defense Sec Spent His College Years Crusading Against ‘Glorification of Diversity’ And ‘The Homosexual Lifestyle’

Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran, and former Fox News weekend host and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, experienced a political awakening at Princeton University.

Ian Millhiser @ Vox: Matt Gaetz, Trump’s uniquely unqualified pick for attorney general, explained

Gaetz is a reckless pick even by Trump’s standards.

Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Matt Gaetz’s Sudden Resignation Sure Makes Him Look Guilty

The Florida representative just resigned from Congress—killing a House Ethics investigation on his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Alex Galbraith @ Salon: "Every single word": GOP Rep. Nehls promises to pass anything on Trump's agenda

Following a meeting between Trump and congressional Republicans on Wednesday, Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said he was ready to pass "every single word" of the president-elect's second-term agenda.

Michael Luciano @ Mediaite: Tommy Tuberville Claims Senators Have No Business Voting Against Nominees: ‘It’s Not Us to Determine That’

Move over, “Advice and Consent of the Senate,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said senators have no business scrutinizing the appointments of President-elect Donald Trump.

David Gilbert @ Wired: Donald Trump’s New ‘Border Czar’ Defended Child Separation at Festival Held by Gun-Worshipping Sect

Tom Homan, the man president-elect Donald Trump has selected to serve as “border czar,” defended his family separation policy at an extremist festival last month surrounded by QAnon promoters, election conspiracists, and church leaders wearing crowns of bullets.

===

rww

11/12/2024

Kyle Mantyla

Mark Meckler declares that the reaction to Donald Trump's election shows that "the left is psychotic" and suffers from "broadscale mass psychosis."

In the wake of Trump's election, David Barton says the right cannot "take any kind of a breath at all" and must "stay on offense."

Christian nationalists William Wolfe and Dusty Deevers were in Washington, D.C. last week.

In 2022, Tom Homan was scheduled to be a speaker at Nick Fuentes' white nationalist AFPAC III conference but bailed at the last minute after reporters found out he was there. Now, Trump has named Homan to be his "border czar."

Finally, unable to get his agenda adopted by the fellow members of the Arkasas State Library Board, Jason Rapert is "of the opinion that the state of Arkansas would be better served if the Arkansas Legislature would abolish the board completely."

---

MMA 11 24

The revolving door between Donald Trump’s Fox News propaganda outlet and his incoming administration is already beginning to turn.

Trump announced that Fox News contributor Tom Homan will serve as “The Border Czar” with responsibility for “our Nation’s Borders” as well as “all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin” in a Sunday post to Truth Social. Homan joined Fox two months after his June 2018 retirement as acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump’s first term.

Homan’s hiring points to the influential role Fox will play during the second Trump administration. The notoriously Fox-obsessed president-elect hired at least 20 officials who previously worked at the network during his first term, including Cabinet secretaries and top White House aides. Fox, in turn, put more than a dozen members of the Trump orbit on its payroll during and after his presidency.

Homan highlighted the importance of his presence on Fox in a Monday appearance on Fox & Friends, Trump’s favorite morning broadcast.

“I have been on this network for years complaining about what this administration did to this border,” Homan said. “I have been yelling and screaming about it, telling them what they need to do to fix it.”

Trump subsequently posted the segment on Truth Social.

Indeed, Trump has had many opportunities over the years to see Homan using Fox’s platform to promote their shared brand of anti-immigrant vitriol. Homan made at least 441 weekday appearances on Fox from August 2017 through Election Day 2024, according to the Media Matters database, with 80 of those appearances coming since January 2023.

As a member of the Trump administration, Homan made the case for the then-president’s anti-immigrant agenda on his network of choice while reportedly serving as the "intellectual ‘father’” of Trump’s cruel family separation policy.

On Fox’s airwaves, Homan regularly fomented fear of immigrants and demanded radical and inhumane policies in response to their purported invasion.

Homan also appeared in the far-right fever swamps, pushing the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory in an appearance on the online program of a Hitler-praising antisemite.

And during the 2024 presidential campaign, Homan promised that if Trump were elected, Homan would “run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen” in which “no one’s off the table.”

Homan isn’t the only incoming Trump official to benefit from Fox’s megaphone. Several other people Trump reportedly plans to nominate for high-ranking positions in his administration have spent the last several years regularly appearing on the president-elect’s favored network.

According to the Media Matters database, from August 2017 through Election Day 2024:

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), Trump’s reported pick for national security adviser, made at least 569 weekday Fox appearances, including 176 since January 2023.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s pick for deputy White House chief of staff for policy, made at least 374 weekday Fox appearances, including 174 since January 2023.

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Trump’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made at least 307 weekday Fox appearances, including 92 since January 2023.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Trump’s reported pick for secretary of state, made at least 263 weekday Fox appearances, including 70 since January 2023.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump’s reported pick for secretary of homeland security, made at least 135 weekday Fox appearances, including 46 since January 2023.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, made at least 108 weekday Fox appearances, including 32 since January 2023.

Trump’s early staffing selections suggest that his administration will be every bit as intertwined with Fox as it was in his first term. And if Fox is helping with personnel, policy won’t be far behind.

//### A comprehensive review of the revolving door between Fox and the Trump administration

07/22/19

### Fox contributor Tom Homan is the “intellectual ‘father’” of family separation

08/08/22

### The Trump-to-Fox personnel pipeline: A comprehensive review

04/09/21

---

an 11 24

Progressive advocates voiced alarm Monday over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's initial leadership picks—including a border czar who oversaw the separation of migrant families during the Republican's first term—amid fresh allegations that the 2024 victor's transition team is breaking the law by failing to sign a required ethics agreement.

As of Monday, Trump has tapped—or in one case, is expected to imminently name—the following senior administration officials:

Elise Stefanik for United Nations ambassador

On Monday, Trump said he is nominating Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman from New York and longtime ally, to represent the United States at the world body. Stefanik is a dogged defender of Israel, even as the country is on trial for alleged genocide at the International Court of Justice for its ongoing obliteration of Gaza.

Stefanik also supports defunding the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which provides lifesaving aid to Palestinians, over dubious Israeli allegations that its members are members of Hamas and took part in the October 7 attack.

According to AIPAC Tracker, Stefanik has taken more than $900,000 in campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and aligns with the lobby group's advocacy for unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel.

"Other countries send diplomats to serve as U.N. ambassadors. The U.S. always sends AIPAC-approved Israel shills. And, this time, one who is also an abrasive, bigoted, far-right clown," said Craig Mokhiber, a former U.N. human rights attorney who resigned last year over what he saw as the world body "failing" to respond to a "textbook case of genocide" in Gaza.

Mokhiber added that Stefanik is "a fitting pick to represent the rapid decline of the U.S. on the world stage."

Lebanese American University professor Jad Melki said sardonically of Stefanik's selection, "Thank you Trump for removing any illusions about your administration's supportive policy towards the Israeli genocide in Palestine and Lebanon."

While not a Cabinet-level pick, Trump is expected to appoint Brian Hook—described by Drop Site News' Murtaza Hussain as "a major Iran hawk who helped lead the 'maximum pressure' campaign of sanctions, sabotage, and assassinations that characterized Trump's approach to Tehran"—to lead his State Department transition team.

Lee Zeldin for Environmental Protection Agency administrator

Described by one Trump critic as a "fantastic pick to destroy" the EPA, Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, has an abysmal 14% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters and is expected to oversee the dismantling of Biden administration climate policies. He is an avid booster of the fossil fuel industry, which has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign coffers, and supports expanding fracking and offshore oil drilling.

"At the EPA, Zeldin could undermine any progress made on protecting our environment and slowing climate change, doing more harm than any administrator before him," warned David Arkush, who directs the climate program at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

"His record is clear: During his time in Congress, Zeldin cast vote after vote against measures that protect our environment and would slow the climate crisis," Arkush added.

Previewing their plans, Trump said in a statement that Zeldin "will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions," and the ex-congressman declared that "we will restore U.S. energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the U.S. the global leader of AI." Both claimed they would do that while also protecting air and water, which critics contested.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asserted that Zeldin's "only job will be to reward corporate polluters by gutting the EPA and making our air and water dirtier. In Congress and the courts, we've got a fight ahead."

Tom Homan for "border czar"

Late Sunday, Trump announced that Homan, who served as the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during his first term, will be his point person on border policy, a position that will not require confirmation by what will soon be a Republican-controlled Senate.

Homan—who previously enforced Trump's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy that included the separation of thousands of children from their parents and other relatives—will oversee what the president-elect has promised to be the most sweeping mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

During a Monday interview onFox News, Homan issued a warning to Democratic governors and sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with the future administration's mass deportation program.

"If you're not going to help us, get the hell out of the way," he said. "If we can't get assistance from New York City, we may have to double the number of agents we send to New York City, because we're going to do the job."

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security said that around 1,400 migrant children still have not been reunited with their families. This, after Homan told the Conservative Political Action Conference in October 2023 that family separation "worked."

"I'm sick and tired hearing about the family separation," he said. "Bottom line is, we enforced the law."

Trump has not ruled out a return to the highly controversial policy in his second term.

Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said Homan's appointment "should make it clear to everyone that the Trump administration will make good on their promises of mass deportation."

"We know *exactly* who Tom Homan is. He is the architect of the 'zero-tolerance' policy that separated thousands of migrant children from their parents with no plan for reunification," Ramirez continued. "He demonstrates cold disregard for the U.S. citizenship of the at least 4 million children with an undocumented parent, suggesting to keep families together, they should be deported together."

"The Trump administration's goal is to inflict maximum damage on diverse American families, our children, and our communities," the congresswoman added. "But let it be known, I will fight like hell to keep our families together, and our communities are ready to be an obstacle at every turn as he tries to implement his cruel, vile, gruesome plan."

Susie Wiles for White House chief of staff

Wiles is a longtime GOP strategist who has managed Trump's campaign operations since 2021, even as she worked for the tobacco company Swisher International lobbying to influence Congress on Food and Drug Administration regulations. She is also co-chair of the lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs, which represents Big Pharma and junk food companies in apparent conflict with Trump's stated goal to "make America healthy again."

Stephen Miller for deputy chief of staff for policy

Numerous U.S. media outlets reported Monday that Trump is expected to tap Miller, a first-term senior adviser and speechwriter, as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller—an architect of Trump's family separation policy who advocates racist and xenophobic immigration policies—was described in 2019 by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as a "verified white supremacist."

Although Miller's appointment was not yet official, Vice President-elect JD Vance on Monday congratulated what he called Trump's "fantastic pick."

Miller notoriously authored much of Trump's January 6, 2001 speech that is widely blamed for inciting that day's Capitol insurrection.

Last year, Miller vowed that Trump's first-term program to strip some naturalized Americans of their U.S. citizenship would be "turbocharged" should he win reelection.

Responding to reports of Miller's White House return, Jesse Mermell, the president and founder of the progressive deWit Impact Group, wrote on social media that "nothing about this is a surprise, but seeing it in print is still nightmare fuel."

Both Homan and Miller are among the at least 140 officials from Trump's first administration involved in Project 2025, a blueprint for a far-right overhaul of the federal government that includes terminating the legal status of around 500,000 immigrants currently protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, people commonly called "Dreamers."

CNN reported Monday that billionaire backer Elon Musk has been seen visiting Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida "nearly every single day" since Election Day and is "weighing in on staffing decisions, making clear his preference for certain roles."

Trump said during his campaign that he would place Musk in charge of government efficiency, raising progressive fears of aggressive cuts to crucial social programs and regulators.

As Trump fills out his Cabinet, critics noted in recent days that his transition team still hasn't signed legally required ethics agreements with the Biden administration, possibly over a mandatory pledge to avoid the conflicts of interest that plagued his first term.

"Donald Trump and his transition team are already breaking the law. I would know because I wrote the law," U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Monday on social media. "Incoming presidents are required to prevent conflicts of interest and sign an ethics agreement. This is what illegal corruption looks like."

Responding to the prospect of a return to the "countless abuses of power" in Trump's first administration, Lisa Gilbert, the executive vice president of Public Citizen, said Monday that "we need to prepare to push back."

"The good news is, we can win these types of fights," Gilbert added. "We helped drive out three Cabinet secretaries from office last time, and we can do that kind of thing again."

---

11/08/24 MMA

### Bannon praises Tom Homan and Stephen Miller's mass deportation plans: “They know what they're doing”

11/12/24 12:31 PM EST

### With “Border Czar” Tom Homan, Trump restarts the revolving door between Fox and his administration

11/12/24 11:03 AM EST

### Steve Bannon floats Rudy Giuliani to “assist” a special prosecutor in the Trump administration

11/12/24 10:50 AM EST

### Fox & Friends co-host: “I don't remember Republicans acting out like this, cutting their hair and all of this after Donald Trump lost in 2020”

11/12/24 10:07 AM EST

### Jesse Watters says mass deportation is “going to be hysterical”

11/08/24

===

mma

Project 2025 organizer Heritage Foundation gave $1 million for Trump’s convention

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published 10/18/24

The Heritage Foundation, the architect of Project 2025, gave $1 million to the 2024 Republican National Convention, according to a recently filed document. Because of a firestorm of criticism, Trump and Republicans have attempted to distance themselves from the embattled group.

Project 2025 is an extreme right-wing initiative that intends to provide policy and personnel to the next conservative administration. Its proposals include attacks on reproductive rights, education, and LGBTQ rights.

On September 16, the host committee that helped organize the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — whose official name is 170 Freedom Milwaukee 2024 Host Committee Inc. — filed its post convention report listing donors with the Federal Elections Commission.

One of them is the Heritage Foundation, which donated $1 million for the convention in February.

[no doc]

The nonprofit Energy and Policy Institute noted Heritage’s donation in an article last month.

Project 2025 contributor Tom Homan, a Heritage visiting fellow, and Peter Navarro, who authored a chapter of Project 2025’s guiding document, spoke at the convention. Heritage itself sponsored the convention and hosted a “policy fest” near the convention venue. Russ Vought, another chapter author, was the policy director of the RNC’s 2024 Committee on the Platform. And Heritage branding was also displayed at the Milwaukee airport.

Aside from the convention, Trump and his campaign have numerous connections to Project 2025.

===

At Heritage Policy Fest, Tom Homan pledges mass deportations under another Trump administration: “No one’s off the table”

07/16/24

===

One senior-level official from former President Donald Trump's administration just made an ominous threat to the immigrant community during a recent gathering of far-right political activists.

On Tuesday, Semafor reporter Dave Weigel reported that during the National Conservatism conference (also known as "NatCon") in Washington, D.C., several of the speakers eagerly expressed how they would help the former president accomplish his goal of pursuing vengeance against his political opponents if elected to a second term. During one panel, Tom Homan – who was director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Trump's Department of Homeland Security – suggested he was already working behind the scenes to make Trump's promise to deport millions of immigrants as draconian as possible.

"Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Homan said. “They ain’t seen s— yet. Wait until 2025.”

As the New York Times reported last year, one key plank of Trump's second-term policy agenda is the rounding up and detainment of undocumented immigrants on an unprecedented scale. Trump immigration advisor Stephen Miller — an outed white nationalist — previously suggested Trump would deport approximately 10 million immigrants during a second term. Earlier this year, Ronald Brownstein — a senior editor for the Atlantic — tweeted excerpts from a speech Miller gave to National Rifle Association activists about how Trump would create “standing facilities” to detain immigrants by the thousands “where planes are moving off the runway constantly.”

Deporting millions of immigrants in a short number of years would likely be a major blow to the economy and result in significant price hikes for Americans. New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan reported last month that it's likely "production falls and labor costs go up" in the event of mass deportations.

"For example, if farmers could not find enough workers to pick all their crops, there would be a smaller supply of produce and it would get more expensive," they wrote. "And businesses would be forced to offer higher wages to attract or retain workers — passing on some of their higher costs to consumers."

According to Weigel, the NatCon audience that met at the Capital Hilton in D.C. consisted of "Trump administration veterans mingled with conservative writers and think tankers who had conquered the old 'Bush-Romney' Republican Party." Attendees reportedly viewed Trump as "a conquering hero who’d have a confident, well-trained movement behind him next year," and NatCon speakers often echoed Trump's promises to use the force of the federal government to punish Trump's enemies.

In a segment featuring former Trump attorney John Eastman (author of the so-called "Eastman Memo" that outlined the plot to disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College count), the now-disbarred lawyer proposed punishing federal judges who ruled against Trump in his unsuccessful election litigation.

"We’ve got to start impeaching these judges for acting in such an unbelievably partisan way from the bench," Eastman said, just a week after the six conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are free to break the law as long as it's deemed an official act.

John Yoo, who was a top DOJ official in former George W. Bush's administration, also encouraged political reprisal under a second Trump administration. He specifically called on Republican prosecutors to be Trump's political foot soldiers should he win in November.

"People who have used this tool against people like John [Eastman] or President Trump have to be prosecuted by Republican or conservative DAs in exactly the same way, for exactly the same kinds of things, until they stop," Yoo said.

READ MORE:[Conservative admits Trump's policies 'would result in price spikes' for most Americans

Click here to read Weigel's full report in Semafor.

---

How the border-cop-to-pundit pipeline fuels anti-immigrant coverage | Media Matters for America

for Tom Homan, the answer is always simple, no matter the question: Harsh punishment and brutal tactics get the job done. As a lifelong cop and former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement who has found a new career as a Fox News pundit, Homan deals in absolutes, regardless of his job title.

“Look, when it came to zero tolerance, it worked,” Homan said in a May 2020 interview, explaining and justifying the Trump administration’s family separation border policy, which he'd been advocating for since his time in the Obama administration. “Law enforcement uses zero tolerance across this country all the time, whether it’s drug enforcement or prostitution.”

:{Homan is one of three prominent border cops turned right-wing pundits who exert considerable influence in conservative media and policy circles. Along with Todd Bensman and Jaeson Jones, both former officers at the Texas Department of Public Safety, Homan pushes his hardline nativist messaging to any and all audiences that will have him. He and Bensman are both fellows at organizations founded by John Tanton, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “the racist architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement.”

...?

As ex-cops, Homan, Bensman, and Jones speak with a practitioner's authority. Their claimed expertise, supposedly gleaned from firsthand experience, allows them to mask xenophobia as hard-won knowledge about public safety. They provide a faux-empirical justification for anti-migrant policies, giving viewers a sense that they’re getting the unvarnished truth from people who have lived it. (In reality, border officers are frequently ignorant about basic immigration facts.) But the role these three play isn’t to inform; it’s to reinforce existing anti-immigrant prejudices and provide scaffolding for new laws and policies restricting immigration.

Tom Homan: From family separation architect to Fox News stardom

Of this cop-turned-pundit trio, Homan is the most influential. He has made at least 357 appearances on weekday Fox News since becoming a contributor in August 2018, affording him a massive platform to influence conservative thinking about immigration. Homan’s history in border enforcement — which dates back to 1984, when he became a Border Patrol agent and later joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service — is integral to the authority he commands among conservative activists, politicians, and audiences.

One Fox appearance from 2019 shows how Homan uses his sway to legitimize outlandish proposals — in this case, sending the U.S. military to Mexico to target drug cartels. In late November of that year, then-President Donald Trump floated the idea of designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, which could potentially facilitate operations into the country. Days later, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade interviewed Homan and asked about a recent mass shooting in Mexico that left 21 people dead.

“Tom, I know you say we should go help — but don’t we need to be asked?” Kilmeade said to begin the segment.

“Well, yeah. I think that would be great, and I think the Mexican president is going to ask,” Homan replied. “He has proven he can’t handle it. Mexico has failed at handling these cartels for the last three decades. They can’t succeed without us.”

Homan then approvingly referenced the U.S. invasion of Panama to oust its then-leader Manuel Noriega before arguing that Mexican drug cartels should be formally designated as terrorist organizations to empower federal law enforcement — and presumably the U.S. military — to wage war against Mexican drug cartels on their home soil.

“If we declare them [Mexican drug cartels] a terror group, what changes?” Kilmeade asked. “What does that legally let us do?”

“I think that helps the U.S. do some out-of-the-country operations to attack these organizations,” Homan responded.

If there was any confusion about where Homan stood, in its write-up of the interview, FoxNews.com characterized Homan’s remarks as “agreeing that the cartels should be designated as a terror organization by the U.S."

Homan wasn’t the only conservative pushing that idea, but he was an early adopter. Just as importantly, his years of appearances since then on Fox News have helped solidify the racist ideas used to justify the proposed terrorist group designation: that the United States is being invaded by migrants, and that those migrants are responsible for bringing a majority of the fentanyl that arrives in the country — which is factually incorrect.

Trump eventually backed off his threat to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations. But the idea of using such designations to confer authority on federal authorities to bomb or invade Mexico has essentially become a consensus position on the right. Nearly every candidate in the Republican presidential primary, for instance, sounds indistinguishable from Homan on immigration policy, with each of them pushing for hardline restrictionist policies that are justified by dehumanizing language about immigrants “invading” the southern border.

Nearly every candidate in the Republican presidential primary sounds indistinguishable from Homan on immigration policy.

Homan's hawkishness has been rewarded, as the conservative media and policy ecosystem has warmly embraced him since his departure from the Trump administration. In addition to his employment at Fox News, he was named a visiting fellow at the influential Heritage Foundation in 2022. He’s also a senior fellow at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the nonprofit legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a branch of the Tanton network that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group.

Given Homan's association with that Tanton-founded organization, it’s not surprising that he has repeatedly pushed the great replacement theory, the racist idea that liberal elites are bringing people of color to the United States to replace white people. On October 11, Homan appeared on the show of a Hitler-praising antisemite where he claimed that the Biden administration is trying to purposely destroy the country by opening the borders to bring in “millions” of “future Democratic voters.”

Homan has pursued commercial endeavors as well. In 2020, Hachette Book Group published Homan’s Defend the Border & Save Lives, complete with a front-cover blurb from his Fox News colleague Mark Levin. He is a featured speaker at JL Wilkinson Consulting, a right-wing talent agency that also represents far-right cops Sheriff David Clarke and Sheriff Mark Lamb.

Homan also founded Homeland Strategic Consulting, which pulled in over $83,000 in consulting fees for services provided to Arizona businessman and failed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Money began flowing Homan’s way just four months after he publicly endorsed Lamon’s candidacy. (Homan denied that the endorsement was related to the consulting contract.)

Homan has extensive links to extremist organizations and individuals, beyond his affiliation with the Tanton network. Earlier this year, Homan spoke virtually at an event honoring Mel K, a QAnon influencer and conspiracy theorist who has spread lies about the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich and denied the results of the 2020 election.

In March 2022, HuffPost reported that Homan had been scheduled to speak at an event organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. When confronted by HuffPost about his appearance at the racist conference, Homan blamed his assistant for arranging the appearance and the fact that “so many names of conservative groups sound the same."

Homan then claimed that he left the conference after reading that Fuentes was supportive of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but he stopped short of criticizing the openly bigoted group. “I’m not saying this is a bad group,” Homan said, referring to Fuentes and his racist supporters, known as groypers. “I’m saying I don’t know."

Later that year, HTom Trentooman co-founded an anti-immigration organization that bears the same name as Homan’s book, Defend the Border & Save Lives, with fellow Islamophobe . In addition to helping Homan pilot the new group, Trento, who once told an audience at a 9/11 commemoration in 2013 that the goal of “all Islam” is to “get every single one of us to convert to Islam,” also runs an organization called The United West, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an anti-Muslim group.

This March, Homan was named CEO of election denialist organization The America Project, founded by far-right multimillionaire Patrick Byrne. In addition to his duties as CEO, Homan also heads the group’s Border911 initiative, which has sponsored anti-migrant events throughout the country. The organization frequently posts videos of its rallies on Rumble, an extreme right-wing YouTube clone. Newsmax’s Jaeson Jones is also part of Border911, and he spoke alongside Homan at many of the group’s recent events.

Homan frequently denies that he has any political agenda, instead couching his preferences simply as apolitical enforcement of existing laws enacted by Congress. In 2018, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Homan if ICE’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy, a policy Homan was overseeing at the time, was “humane."

“I think it’s the law,” Homan replied.

“It may be the law, it may be the policy, but is it humane?” Blitzer asked again.

“I think it’s the law, and I’m a law enforcement [officer],” Homan reiterated. “I must follow the law.”

But for Homan, not all laws are meant to be followed. In April, he headlined a Border911 fundraiser with Donald Trump at the former president’s residence and club Mar-a-Lago to raise money for families of people who participated in the January 6 insurrection. Speaking to the crowd, Homan reminisced about an early conversation in which Trump told him to “enforce the laws, that's all I'm asking you to do.”

“We kicked ass,” Homan reflected. “We kicked ass.”

Todd Bensman: Not an expert on immigration, by his own admission

Like Homan, Bensman has leveraged his history in law enforcement into a new career as an immigration restrictionist pundit and writer. Most of his work appears on the website for the Center for Immigration Studies — another branch of the anti-immigrant Tanton network — but he’s also written two books, and has published pieces at The Daily Wire, the Daily Mail, the New York Post, and other prominent conservative news outlets. He’s been on Fox News and Fox Business combined at least 27 times since 2017, according to a search of an internal Media Matters database and Bensman’s official website.

As Media Matters previously reported, Bensman has also appeared on extremist streaming programs as well. In June, he appeared on The Stew Peters Show, whose eponymous host is a white nationalist. He’s also been on at least three programs or platforms with ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory, including: The Mel K Show, Making Sense of the Madness (hosted by QAnon supporter Sean Morgan), and The Debbie Aldrich Show, from Creative Destruction Media, an outfit that in addition to endorsing QAnon also posts racist and anti-LGBTQ content.

In 2018, the Center for Immigration Studies brought Bensman on as a senior national security fellow. From his first days at the organization, Bensman stoked fears about terrorist “infiltration” at the southern border, a framing he regularly returns to despite evidence that conservatives wildly overstate the perceived threat as a way to demonize migrants.

In mid-September, Bensman spoke at a conference that also hosted John Eidsmoe, a retired Air Force officer who once spoke at a conference organized by a white supremacist group and has praised Confederate leader Jefferson Davis and pro-slavery advocate John C. Calhoun. QAnon-promoter Alex Newman was also a featured speaker at the event.

A granular look at how Bensman’s misinformation traveled is instructive.

Bensman frequently adopts a flood-the-zone style of content production, using his Center for Immigration Studies-sponsored trips to the border to create images and videos that confirm the bigoted prior assumptions of his intended audience. One of his recent successful operations was seeding a myth that the Biden administration was providing all migrant families with $2,200 monthly cost-of-living checks. Experts fact-checked the claim as false in real time, and news organizations have long debunked earlier versions of the persistent rumor,but a granular look at how Bensman’s misinformation traveled is instructive.

On September 6, Bensman posted a video on X purportedly showing a Border Patrol agent saying migrant families “get a check every month” of “about $2,200.” Bensman characterized the imaginary program as a “scam,” but acknowledged that he would have “to independently confirm” its existence, which he did not do. Instead, Bensman repeated the false claim three days later, even while admitting the accusation was “short of details” and “unverified.”

In the meantime, the conspiracy theory-amplifying pipeline kicked into overdrive. The same day he first posted on X about the supposed checks, Bensman went on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast and continued to spread the myth.

Video

CitationFrom the September 6, 2023, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

“The government gives them cost-of-living checks, for one family per month: $2,200. So if the father brings one of the kids and the mother brings another of the kids, and they just act like two families, they’re pulling in $4,400 a month, according to that Border Patrol agent,” Bensman told Bannon. Bensman again acknowledged he hadn’t confirmed whether it was true or not, but that didn’t stop him from spending more than two minutes spreading the misinformation.

On September 7, junk news site The Gateway Pundit picked up the story, citing Bensman as its primary source.

The same day, Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy parroted Bensman’s conspiracy theory, telling Fox’s audience that the Biden administration was “paying $2,200 per family."

Republican politicians spread the myth even further. “We are literally subsidizing our own invasion,” Rep. Matt Gaetz said on X, reposting The Gateway Pundit’s story. Former Trump official and Christian nationalist Russ Vought, a well-connected policy adviser on Capitol Hill, then reposted Gaetz.

Rep. Lauren Boebert repeated the $2,200-per-month claim on X/Twitter without any sourcing. When asked by local 9News Denver where she got her information, Boebert’s press office sent a link to the Gateway Pundit story. (9News’s ruling on Boebert’s statement? “Not true.”)

IFrame Content

On September 10, Bensman obliquely walked back his initial claim, without clearly admitting he was wrong. He later defended himself to The Washington Post, saying: “I was hoping to get to the bottom of it. Maybe an expert would send a link or explain it.”

At least one element of Bensman’s story is true. As he inadvertently acknowledged, he is not an expert. He is a propagandist, and his distortions are all the more potent in right-wing media because of his history as a cop.

Jaeson Jones: Bringing the war on terror to Mexico

On May 19, Newsmax border correspondent Jaeson Jones posted a promotional video for The America Project and Border911 to his Instagram account. In the video, Jones, sitting alongside Homan, directly addresses Border Patrol agents.

“I’m Jaeson Jones, retired captain from the Texas Department of Public Safety, and someone who’s out there on the border every day working with you guys to try to get out what you’re going through to the American people,” Jones said.

No viewer would expect Newsmax, which has sought to outflank Fox News from the right, to adhere to journalistic standards of neutrality and balance, but it’s still remarkable that Jones would openly admit that his goal as a correspondent is to show what his fellow border cops are “going through” rather than gather facts. By his own admission, he’s not covering a story — he’s “working with” the Texas Department of Public Safety and Border Patrol agents.

When Jones, Homan, and Bensman speak, they are speaking on behalf of border cops and law enforcement writ large, acting as representatives of what journalist Jessica Pishko describes as a “baronial class” of public employees who enjoy special rights and privileges. These ex-cops are pushing the ideological and material interests of that class, with the end result of expanding law enforcement budgets and political influence. The explosion of federal spending on immigration and border enforcement stretches back for decades, but the fearmongering that Homan, Bensman, and Jones push has the predictable effect of directing ever more public funds to this repressive apparatus.

That dynamic explains, in part, why — like Homan — Jones has repeatedly called for the U.S. government to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Such a move would almost certainly open up vast resources for state and federal border officers, in addition to conferring more political power and legal authority on those departments.

In fact, Jones advocated for designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations well before Trump ever publicly floated the idea.

Jones advocated for designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations well before Trump ever publicly floated the idea.

During a June 18, 2019, interview with Lou Dobbs on Fox Business, Jones described cartels as “global violent networks who are acting as terrorist organizations around the world.” He added that several cartels had “gone through a quantum leap in capabilities,” in part because of “what they’ve learned from the FARC, which is a designated terrorist organization."

Jones was referring to the Colombian guerilla group that the United States designated as a foreign terrorist organization from 1997 to 2021, and the reference wasn’t incidental. In the early days of the war on terror, the group served a crucial role for another federal organization, the Drug Enforcement Agency.

As journalist Trevor Aaronson has described, in the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government began funneling money into any project that could be described as counterterrorism. With Washington focused on global terrorism, the DEA, a key combatant in the previous generation’s war on drugs, found itself sidelined and relatively starved of federal funds. To bolster its raison d'être, the agency invented a new category of crime — narcoterrorism — and used the FARC, a designated terrorist organization funded in part by drug trafficking, as a pry-bar to access all the counterterrorism money sloshing around Washington at the time.

Under the DEA’s new mission, agents and their informants pretended to be members of the FARC and engaged in elaborate sting operations targeting purported terrorists. Given the FARC’s designation as a terror group, the DEA could claim that it stopped a would-be terrorist if its undercover agents convinced FARC rebels to act on their behalf. (Nevermind that they would have manufactured those would-be terrorists.) With federal resources on the line, fighting terrorism was as much a bureaucratic turf war as it was about waging any other kind of war.

As a former counterterrorism official at Texas Department of Public Safety, Jones likely would have known that specific history. More broadly, he surely understood how the federal funding game is played, and he kept pushing the new line. In a July 2019 interview, also on Lou Dobbs Tonight, Jones was even more explicit in calling for cartels to be labeled terror groups, and again referenced the FARC.

“These are terrorist organizations that are no longer just drug trafficking organizations,” Jones said. “They have evolved into something much larger."

“The U.S. government has not transitioned yet to look at them as terrorists and to designate them as terrorists but yet, they employ the FARC — that is a designated terrorist organization,” he added.

Jones repeated his calls that August, September, October, and November — when Trump publicly contemplated moving forward — and then again the following December, February, March, and June, all on Lou Dobbs Tonight. In the September segment, Jones told Dobbs he had lobbied four members of Congress, “trying to get this foreign terrorist designation.” In 2021, he appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to push for the change, and he continues to agitate for it from his new perch at Newsmax.

The once-fringe idea is now largely accepted as conventional wisdom on the right. Jones and Homan played a significant role in normalizing it, specifically by appealing to their identities as former cops. If their pitch is successful under the next Republican administration, their former agencies would almost certainly benefit handsomely from their advocacy.

The porous border between the hard-right and mainstream media

Homan, Bensman, and Jones are not the only former cops in the right-wing media and think tank ecosystem. One of Bensman’s colleagues at the Center for Immigration Studies, Jon Feere, is a former ICE and DHS official whom NPR quoted in June. Randy Clark, a writer at Breitbart, is retired from Border Patrol. Mark Morgan, former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protections, is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and is a member of Homan's Border911. The list goes on. These figures agitate for nativist immigration policies, channeling reactionary law enforcement attitudes into content served up in conservative media. The answer for them is always zero tolerance, harsher punishments, and more funding and discretion for cops.

The cop-turned-pundit pipeline isn’t unique to conservative outlets, but these figures loom especially large in their reactionary ecosystem given the centrality of nativist politics in the age of Trump. The programs where they appear, especially on Fox News, often set the tone for how mainstream outlets frame immigration, as mainstream outlets frequently adopt language that there is a “crisis” at the border.

One recent example perfectly illustrates how the Tanton network’s reactionary messaging seeps into mainstream news coverage. In mid-September, Washington Post columnist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria called for the president to “use the power he has in existing law to suspend entirely the admission of asylum seekers while the system digests the millions of immigration cases already pending."

To support this extreme and seemingly illegal position, Zakaria cited Nolan Rappaport, a former Department of Homeland Security official who now writes xenophobic op-eds at The Hill. Zakaria identified Rappaport only as “a longtime congressional expert on the issue,” but there’s much more to the story.

One recent example perfectly illustrates how the Tanton network’s reactionary messaging seeps into mainstream news coverage.

Rappaport, as it turns out, appears to be profoundly influenced by the organizations that employ Homan and Bensman. Rappaport blurbed Bensman’s first book, has cited him in at least three recent op-eds, and cited the Center for Immigration Studies in another. Rappaport frequently directs his stories, which he posts on X, at the Center for Immigration Studies’ policy director by tagging her username and at the account for Immigration Reform Law Institute, where Homan is a legal fellow. The Immigration Reform Law Institute then regularly reposts Rappaport’s stories to its own feed.

The pipeline from the Center for Immigration Studies and Bensman, and the Immigration Reform Law Institute and Homan, to Rappaport to Zakaria is invisible to the average reader. But Homan, for his part, sees it clearly.

“Please support CIS,” Homan said at the end of the conversation where he defended zero tolerance punishment against sex workers, people who use drugs, and families who crossed the southern border. He was speaking with Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “When I was the director of ICE, even when I was running ERO — Enforcement and Removal Operations, number three in ICE — CIS was a great help to the rule of law and helping ICE do their job."

“And they’re on the right side of the argument, folks, and we’re in a fight for our — we’re in a fight for our lives right now,” he continued. “We’re in a fight for this country. CIS gets it. They’re on the right side of the issues and they’re helping shape immigration in the future. So please support them.”

---

pension?

https://veteransforamericafirst.org/vfaf-sponsored-team-trump-ga-bus-tour/

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-tom-homan-and-sara-carter-are-honoring-dominion-smartmatic-and-seth-rich-conspiracy

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fox News contributors Tom Homan and Sara Carter are set to appear at an event that honors far-right streamer Mel K, who has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, and the death of Seth Rich. They are helping celebrate the conspiracy theorist despite Fox News settling litigation with Dominion and Rich’s family, and while the network is still actively involved in a defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic.

Homan, who was the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been a Fox News contributor since 2018. Carter is a podcast host who joined Fox News in 2017.

Homan recently became the CEO of The America Project, a nonprofit organization that pushes election denialism. It was founded by conspiracy theorist Patrick Byrne, who is facing a Dominion lawsuit for pushing election lies. Byrne is also heavily connected to the QAnon movement. He praised Homan in a statement on the group’s website, saying that the “Nation’s top lawman will CEO the organization whose mission is to defend our borders, protect our rights and freedoms, and secure election integrity.”

The America Project is sponsoring an April 29 gala in Florida for the nonprofit Partners For Family Values called “Celebrating Conservative Women's Voices.” Homan is the keynote speaker while Carter, former Fox News pundit and Trump administration official Monica Crowley, and right-wing commentator Gina Loudon are listed as celebrity guests. (Loudon has also promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion, including tweeting: “#Dominion #StopTheSteal.”) A flyer for the gala describes Mel K as a “celebrity podcaster” and an event “honoree.”

Mel K is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who hosts an eponymous streaming program. She has repeatedly claimed that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 election. She has also included Smartmatic, a voting systems company that is suing Fox News for defamation, in her conspiracy theories.

During a May 2021 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Charlie Ward’s show, Mel K said that a Dominion employee stated “he would not let Trump win. Well, he meant it. And -- they’re so caught there. There's a million reasons. But the thing is, all of this is treason.”

After Ward later said that “Dominion and Smartmatic fixed it” and flipped the votes, she replied: “Yup. It’s happened all over the world.”

During another 2021 discussion, Mel K told Ward on her own show that the two companies are involved in a worldwide conspiracy to rig elections, stating: “We’re talking now Ecuador, Myanmar, Belarus, Haiti, we're talk -- even Brazil. We're talking about this whole Smartmatic/Dominion voting thing being a worldwide issue and being caught one after another after another. It was caught here first. But all of these countries are having the exact same problem.”

She also accused Dominion and Smartmatic of being part of a global conspiracy that’s “caught up” in Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that prominent individuals have trafficked children through a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. She claimed in February 2021 of this group of people, which includes Smartmatic and Dominion: “They're all caught up in, what, Israel, Pizzagate. And they're all caught up in that. They're caught up in a lot of this stuff. … The Epstein boomerang is what I call it, and it’s coming back soon. They’re all involved. It’s the same people and they’re all involved in all of it. And it's about hiding their own crimes. Because, on a side note, what's going on in Myanmar, which I believe is a sting, too, because it's the same people. Smartmatic, Dominion, the IMF put a huge amount of money in there to control the election.”

During her convoluted rant, Mel K also linked this group of people to adrenochrome -- the QAnon-connected conspiracy theory that elites harvest children’s blood.

She recently claimed that Fox News' settlement with Dominion was actually “an inside merger not a settlement” and the company that owns Dominion is “friends” with the people who control Fox.

Mel K has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy theory that Democrats murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. In 2020, Fox News privately settled with Rich’s parentsafter the network pushed reprehensible conspiracy theories — including a retracted story — about his death.

On her July 13, 2021, program, Mel K claimed that Rich “stumbled upon a lot of horrible stuff going on at the DNC,” and she later said: “All of this goes back to [Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman] John Podesta. And there was an email released in the WikiLeaks with Hillary Clinton asking John Podesta if he, if they could drone Julian Assange. So basically what happened was after they had Seth Rich murdered, that's when they created the entire Russia hoax.”

On Instagram, Mel K wrote this January that “justice in his case will unlock a Pandora’s box of crime criminals demons and sell outs. … #johnpodesta #justiceforSethRich.” She recently posted a picture of herself with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, calling him “the absolute most fearless boldest bravest voice in America.”

computer sys did not talk diff depts; top vet/admin lied to DHS head K? about capability; even when had chance to reunite, did not, purpose delay

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-contributor-tom-homan-intellectual-father-family-separation

please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gab TV, GETTR

Veterans for America First has made a new round of endorsements.

VFAF.ORG has Admiral Charles Kubic as its national spokesman. The Admiral served in the Trump administration and was tasked with building the southern border wall.

Tom Homan former ICE director serves on the VFAF board andTana Goertz a PR director for Donald Trump recently signed on as an Ambassador.

VFAF Chairman Vlad Lemets was recently acknowledged by president Trump at a Mar-A-Lago fundraiser for John Gibbs where the president called Lemets on stage stating he knew him and the organization.

VFAF has endorsed Georgia Candidates David Perdue for Governor , Herschel Walker for Senate , Patrick Witt for Insurance Commissioner , John Gordon for Attorney General , Andrew Clyde for congress GA9 , Burt Jones for Lt.Governor , Mallory Staples for congress GA6 , YG Nyghtstorm for congress GA7, Surrea Ivy for congress GA4 , Jeremy Hunt for congress GA2 , and Jared Craig for congress GA3.

Stan Fitzgerald the Chief Political Director for VFAF ,who is a Georgia resident, states the organization was originally known as Veterans for Trump and will call all hands on deck to elect true America First conservatives who will implement the Trump/America First agenda in Georgia and why the organization has also made the following state house endorsements consisting of Shane Miller , Stoney Mathis , Carminthia Moore , David Delk , Chasity Pawvlik ,Blake Mcclellan and Marziyeh Amirizadeh. Fitzgerald is working on several Georgia campaigns including Mallory Staples GA6 and states that he and his wife were recently asked by president Trump to focus on John Gordon for Attorney General during a recent visit to Mar-A-Lago.

You Won’t Get Anywhere Else What You Get From CDMedia! Donate!

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/federation-american-immigration-reform

splc 5 22

...Another FAIR initiative to end birthright citizenship provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment,a longtime goal of the group, was launched in January 2011. IRLI, FAIR’s legal arm, working in partnership withState Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), announced a plant to halt what they call “the misapplication of the 14th Amendment.” The Fourteenth Amendment ensures that children born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship is how most Americans become citizens.

SLLI is a coalition of about 70 legislators in 38 states dedicated to eliminating “economic attractions” for immigrants and their “unlawful invasion” of the U.S. The group is often described as the legislative arm of FAIR, which is apt given the group says on its website that it has a “working partnership” with FAIR. SLLI’s legislators are the main instigators behind favored FAIR initiatives, including attempts at the state level to deny immigrants various rights through laws modeled on Arizona’s S.B. 1070.

SLLI has grown dormant in recent years, and the Supreme Court in 2012 struck downmost of SB 1070’s provisions as unconstitutional. FAIR’s push to end birthright citizenship, however, has not. Encouraged by then-candidate Donald Trump’s immigration plan, which proposed to “end birthright citizenship” because it is “the biggest magnet for illegal immigration,” FAIR published a report claiming the enforcement of birthright citizenship is based on a misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. On June 29, 2018, IRLI filed an amicus brief in Fitisemanu v. United States. IRLI alleges the Fourteenth Amendment has been misinterpreted since 1898 and hopes the case will be taken to the Supreme Court.

The 2012 election saw a renewed push for immigration reform at the federal level, with a bipartisan bill passing the Senate before collapsing in the House. In an effort to stop reform legislation, anti-immigrant front groups first created with the help of FAIR in the mid-2000s were revived and rebranded. Groups like Choose Black America and You Don’t Speak for Me were replaced by the African American Leadership Council (AALC), a name replaced quickly by the Black American Leadership Alliance (BALA), and Alliance for Immigration Justice (AIJ). These groups, which ostensibly opposed reform because it would damage job prospects for minorities and hurt taxpayers, were made up of African Americans and Latinos. Many of them – such as Leah Durant, a former staffer at IRLI (FAIR’s legal arm), and Frank Morris, a longtime FAIR board member – had close ties to nativist organizations. BALA did manage to organize a rally in Washington – the “D.C. March for Jobs“ – that brought together a few thousand activists, including some nativist extremists like D.A. King of Georgia.

Following the failure of reform legislation, FAIR found a new focus. As the number of children fleeing violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua spiked in the summer of 2014, FAIR and its allies began to target organizations aiding these unaccompanied minors. FAIR published a map on its website with the title, “Is the Border Crisis Coming to a Town Near You?” It named locales where minors were being resettled and the organizations helping in that effort. Protests organized by anti-immigrant activists took place in a number of locations, most infamously in Murrieta, California, where activists blocked a bus full of women and children on their way to an immigration-processing center. In Michigan, anti-Muslim activist Tamyra Murray, a state adviser for FAIR, organized a protest against the relocation of minors in Vassar.

Even without a major immigration reform bill to challenge, FAIR’s public statements in recent years show that the organization remains true to the white nationalist principles on which it was founded. In late December 2015, Dan Stein told supporters in a video message that without a moratorium on immigration, “we’re going to lose everything about what it means to be an American.”

FAIR continues to be involved in pushing anti-immigrant laws at the state and local level. The organization has run campaigns in multiple states.

In March 2018, the organization emailed supporters to contact legislators in the campaign against Maryland becoming a sanctuary state. “House Bill (HB) 1461 makes it nearly impossible for state and local law enforcement to protect Marylanders against dangerous criminal aliens, even those convicted of the most serious crimes,” FAIR wrote.

In April 2018, FAIR praised the passage of anti-sanctuary bill HB 2315 in Tennessee, and promised to defend the legislation from any legal challenges. That same month, the organization lauded the passage of anti-sanctuary bill SF 481 in Iowa. FAIR’s State and Local Director Shari Rendall responded to criticism writing, “Most illegal aliens don’t cooperate with police – even in sanctuary cities – because the vast majority come from countries where law enforcement is either corrupt or serves as a tool of state oppression.” The Iowa Police Chiefs Association publicly came out against the bill. In December 2017, IRLI co-filed a lawsuit against Gary, Indiana, claiming ordinances preventing local law enforcement from detaining immigrants for ICE violate Indiana’s anti-sanctuary law. FAIR’s legal arm co-filed a second suit against the city of East Chicago in May 2018.

Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR), an anti-immigrant hate group, is leading the campaign to overturn the state’s sanctuary policy through a referendum on the November 2018 ballot. FAIR has donated over $60,000 to this campaign while IRLI contributed $5,000.

FAIR and IRLI also led the campaign against California’s sanctuary city state law, which has resulted in over 25 cities voting to oppose SB 54. A group of anti-immigrant activists have testified throughout Southern California in opposition. These activists made antisemitic, anti-LGBT and nativist comments. IRLI also filed two amicus briefs opposing California’s sanctuary law. In one brief, IRLI claimed laws like the California Values Act, which ensures resources won’t be allocated for mass deportations, could lead to “armed confrontation between local and federal officers.”

FAIR, IRLI employees enter Trump administration

Former employees of FAIR and IRLI joined the ranks of the highest levels of government. Julie Kirchner, former FAIR director, left the organization in 2015 to act as an immigration adviser to the Trump campaign. She served as the Citizenship and Immigration Services ombudsman. John Zadrozny, also formerly of FAIR, moved to the State Department following his stint on the Domestic Policy Council. From 2017 to 2021, Robert Law worked at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), first as senior policy adviser and subsequently as chief of the Office of Policy and Strategy. Prior to joining the Trump administration, Law served as FAIR’s lobbying director and director of government relations from 2013 to 2017.

Ian Smith, who was previously employed by FAIR’s legal arm, IRLI, resigned his position as Homeland Security policy analyst on immigration issues on Aug. 28, 2018, after emails leaked to and shared by The Atlanticappeared to tie him to white nationalists Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor. That same day, former FAIR staffer and sole Latino employee Joe Gomez filed an official complaint with Washington, D.C.’s Office of Human Rights alleging discrimination and harassment during his tenure with the organization. Included in the litany of complaints was Communications Director Dave Ray inappropriately referencing Gomez’s ethnicity, often greeting him with “Hola hombre,” and “Que paso?” while other employees used a mocking Hispanic accent. Gomez also alleges FAIR employee Jennifer Hickey used the word “s---” twice, once referencing him.

The Trump administration to the present

During the Trump administration, FAIR and other anti-immigrant hate groups witnessed the implementation of draconian and nativist policies they spent decades advocating for. President Trump’s defeat meant that the nativist movement no longer had an ally in the White House.

The implications for groups like FAIR were twofold. First, FAIR, and the nativist movement at large, would need to shift their strategy from policy implementation to policy preservation; secondly, with their influence over the executive branch extinguished, FAIR and other anti-immigrant hate groups would need to refocus their attention on a familiar set of actors: state and local public officials.

The end of the Trump administration also resulted in former senior administration officials joining FAIRs and other anti-immigrant group’s staff. Mark Morgan, the former acting director of ICE and acting commissioner of CBP, joined FAIR as a senior fellow and spokesperson. Morgan also serves as a visiting fellow in the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

Additionally, IRLI, FAIR’s legal arm, hired Tom Homan as a senior fellow. During the Trump administration, Homan served as the acting director of ICE from January 2017 to June 2018. Through their new roles, both Morgan and Homan have used media appearances to excoriate the Biden administration’s immigration policies, while lauding and promoting the preservation of Trump administration policies.

Across 2021, FAIR has focused its attention on increasing its influence on state and local public officials, particularly sheriffs.On June 25, 2021, FAIR organized a “Rally to End Biden’s Border Crisis,” at a segment of the U.S. border in Hereford, Arizona. The speakers at the event included Mark Morgan,Tom Homan, local sheriffs and Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council. On April 8, 2021, FAIR promoted a letter signed by 275 sheriffs from across 39 states attacking the Biden Administration’s immigration strategy.The letter is filled with talking points routinely espoused by groups like FAIR.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/homan-to-fox-news-trumps-immigration-policies-have-reduced-rapes/

David Bossie, Fox News contributor. A right-wing operative who has a history of employing dirty tricks and smears, Bossie was Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016. Fox News hired him as an on-air contributor in February 2017, even though he is reportedly bound by a non-disparagement agreement that prohibits him from publicly criticizing Trump. Indeed, Bossie has used his Fox platform to offer boilerplate defenses of Trump. In December 2018, as Fox personalities recommended him to replace White House chief of staff John Kelly, Bossie made an on-air pitch for the post on Fox & Friends.

Tom Homan, Fox News contributor. Homan served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from January 2017 until his retirement in June 2018, using that post to promote the president’s inhumane policies while spreading fear of and among immigrants, often on Fox. Homan joined the network as a contributor in August 2018. As a Fox employee, he staunchly supported the president’s immigration policies and statements and called for draconian responses to the purported migrant “invasion.” During a June 2019 Fox interview, Trump announced that he had hired Homan for a “border czar” position in the White House -- to the visible shock of the interviewers -- but Homan subsequently said that he had considered taking such a position but had not done so.

During Fox News’ town hall with 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Julian Castro, co-moderator Martha MacCallum falsely claimed that 90% of immigrants who are detained and then released “do not ever show up for their court date.” This is false. The number is only related to a Trump administration pilot program launched in late 2018 to expedite asylum cases; in contrast, the traditional program for these families is effective, with just 27.4% of families failing to appear for their court dates.

MacCallum appears to have lifted the lie from erstwhile Fox contributor Tom Homan, whom Trump recently announced could be rejoining the administration as a "border czar."

This highlights the Faustian bargain that Fox News town halls offer to Democrats. The candidates want exposure, but the cost is exposing the audience to a massive slew of Fox News propaganda (this is not the first timea Fox moderator pushed misinformation during a town hall). And this puts the candidates in a lose-lose position. They either need to be able to debunk all the lies off the top of their head (and lose the chance to talk about their policies), or they let the propaganda go by without debunking it. And all the while, Fox News is using the image of the candidate's appearnance to sell ads, subsidizing the hate from the rest of the network.

Trump announces that he wants to make a Fox contributor the "border czar"

During a Friday morning interview on *Fox & Friends*, President Trump announced that he was hiring Tom Homan back into his administration as a “border czar.” Homan has since demurred.

Homan once served as Trump’s acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Homan began appearing exclusively on Fox News in the latter months of his leadership of ICE and joined Fox as a contributor after he retired in June 2018. But even before his retreat to Fox, Homan spread and inspired misinformation in the conservative media sphere:

In 2017, Homan falsely suggested that an undocumented immigrant may have been responsible for the devastating wildfires in California. Local law enforcement officials were forced to debunk Homan’s statement.
Under Homan’s tenure at ICE, the agency often wrongly accused immigrants of being gang members as a pretext to arrest them.
During his time in government service, Homan reportedly used a slur in his work that glorified violence against immigrants.
In September, following the start of his employment at Fox News, Homan was a special honoree a conference organized by the anti-Muslim extremist group ACT for America.
Homan called for criminal charges against local government leaders of so-called sanctuary cities.
In June 2018, Homan defended Trump’s inhumane family separation policy and said “you’d have to put the blame on the parents” for immigration officials taking their children away.
ICE arrested for deportation several immigration activists, journalists, and ICE critics under Homan’s leadership, spurring accusations of improper politicization of immigration law enforcement.
Homan advocated for detention of migrants past current legal time limit, including for pregnant women.

Homan's rhetoric has continued on Fox as well: He's called for 100,000 immigrant families to be rounded up and deported, supported the idea of detaining immigrants in tent cities, and blamed deaths of migrant children in DHS custody on the lack of a border wall. You can sum up Homan's approach with what he told Fox in November: "There should be fear in the immigrant community."