Trump’s Border Czar on Record Arrests, Attacks on ICE, and What Comes Next

A chance encounter with a little girl along the border, raped while trying to cross into the United States, shaped Tom Homan long before he became the president’s border czar.

That experience was a defining moment of his 40-year law enforcement career and helps explain why Homan came out of retirement to oversee the retightening of border policies.

“I never forgot about her,” Homan told host Jan Jekielek on an episode of EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” that aired on Sept. 26.

“That little girl’s never going to be the same again,” he said. “There are a lot of things that stuck in my mind over 40 years that make me who I am today, and why I fight so hard.”

​In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, Homan discussed his time in the Trump administration. He also explained how he built “the most secure border in history” while setting records for illegal immigrant arrests and deportations despite legal and political pushback.

​Homan said some people choose to believe that crossing the border illegally into the United States is a victimless crime, but it’s not.

Homan said that under the Biden administration, 4,000 illegal immigrants died trying to cross the border and 250,000 Americans died from fentanyl poisoning.

​Because drug and smuggling operations are run by criminals, women and children are particularly vulnerable to cruelty, he said.

Homan noted statistics showing that up to 31 percent of women are sexually assaulted on the journey to cross into the United States.

In addition, there are the “lost children,” unaccompanied minors who were released into the United States and then unaccounted for under the Biden administration.

​When President Donald Trump asked Homan to return to the federal government under his second administration, locating the missing children was one of the top priorities.

“He asked me to do three things: secure the border, run deportation operations, and find these kids,” Homan said.

Homan said about half a million children were smuggled into the United States during the Biden administration.

​Of those, about 157,000 children who crossed the border as unaccompanied minors have been found since the start of the Trump administration, Homan said.

Many caretakers of the unaccompanied minors didn’t respond to welfare check-ins, which caused the government to lose track of nearly 300,000 children.

He said tracking down minors isn’t as easy as locating adults who have digital footprints, homes, and cars.

To make matters worse, investigators had to rely on incorrect information from sponsors, such as false names or wrong addresses, some of which turned out to be supermarkets, churches, or parking lots.

The government found most children safe with family, but Homan said “too many” were found in forced labor or sex trafficking situations.

Some sponsors had as many as 22 children. Sponsors tied to trafficking or forced labor are being prosecuted, Homan said. Another 140,000 children are still missing, and many of them are now 18 or 19.

Record-Breaking Streak

Homan said no illegal immigrants caught on the southwest border by Border Patrol have been released into the country in the past 17 months.

However, gotaways, those who sneak across the border without getting caught, are down but not at zero, Homan said.

That number has dropped from thousands per day to fewer than 100, and border checkpoints have been reopened to help catch them, he said.

Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is setting arrest and deportation records, Homan said.

He said he expects deportations to be on track to break a record and surpass President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2012 total of 409,000. He denied critics’ accusations that the numbers are inflated, saying ICE and Border Patrol report separately.

ICE set arrest records for June, July, and August—despite more than 100 nationwide injunctions and more than 87,000 habeas cases, he said.

CBP announced last month that daily apprehension numbers at the southwest border dropped by 94 percent compared with the Biden administration.

With the southern border now under control, the administration is turning its attention to the north.

Homan said he intends to focus on the northern border with Canada over the next two years, calling it a “huge national security vulnerability.”

Based on intelligence reports and his own experience, people who pose national security threats can more easily enter Canada and then cross into the United States than enter the United States in other ways.

‘Rhetoric and Lies’

Homan said that in today’s politically charged environment for ICE and Border Patrol, officers are working in adverse conditions to enforce the law.

Assaults on officers are up by more than 1,000 percent, threats are up more than 6,000 percent, and vehicle attacks are up 3,200 percent, he said.

He blamed “hateful rhetoric,” including Nazi comparisons from the media and left-wing elected officials, for the increase in threats to and attacks on federal officers assigned to remove illegal immigrants.

Homan said one of the first things he did when he arrived in Minneapolis was increase the internal affairs staff in the Department of Homeland Security to ensure officers who aren’t following procedures are held accountable.

“Because we can’t lose the faith of the American people,” he said.

Homan said that no law enforcement officer wants to use deadly force, which is allowed only when a life is in danger. Agents who lied about incidents have been indicted, he said.

Homan expressed frustration over “the misinformation being fed by some media to the American people.”

“I spend most of my time on media interviews shutting down the lies,” he said.

For example, Homan said reports of illegal immigrant arrests at schools, hospitals, and churches are not true.

The ICE officer-involved shooting in Austin, Texas, involving a Venezuelan illegal immigrant became the latest lightning rod in the immigration enforcement debate.

Homan said that reporting of the Austin incident was riddled with inaccuracies.

The food-delivery driver targeted by ICE was not legally in the country, Homan said. ICE was acting on a deportation order issued by a judge.

Stories that the driver was left disabled after being shot and denied medical care were false, Homan said.

An attorney for the driver, identified as Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez, said Perez was making a DoorDash delivery when ICE officers in an unmarked truck sideswiped his car twice. She said that after Perez was hospitalized, he was released into ICE custody with a bullet still lodged in his back.

Charging documents tell a different story.

After officers stopped Perez, he drove away, striking an officer in the torso with the driver’s side mirror, according to a criminal complaint.

Authorities allege that officers pursued his vehicle with their lights and sirens on through commercial and residential areas.

One officer later caught up to Perez and fired his pistol when Perez tried to strike him with the car, according to the complaint.

Perez was charged on Sept. 29 with assaulting, resisting, interfering with, and impeding a federal officer.

Although Homan didn’t address the specifics of the Austin shooting, he said that officers don’t “shoot anybody because they’re fleeing.” Deadly force is authorized when someone’s life is in danger.

Democrats quickly capitalized on the Austin incident.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) accused ICE officers of “terrorizing [the] country for far too long” and called for people to peacefully protest “this deadly mass deportation machine.”

Although Democrats have been particularly critical of the Trump administration’s arrest of illegal immigrants without a criminal record, Homan pointed out that most have been convicted or charged with a crime.

About 60 percent to 64 percent of those arrested have criminal convictions or pending charges, which include gang activities and trafficking, he said.

‘The Right Reasons’

​Homan said that although media outlets have attacked him personally, he operates under a deep moral conviction that still guides him.

“I take a lot of hate. I get hit pieces on me every day. I don’t care. … I’m here for the right reasons,” he said.

​He said he promised himself that after he retires—again—he will keep helping families who have suffered at the hands of cartels and criminal illegal immigrants.

​Even now, he continues to reach out to those who have lost loved ones to illegal immigrant crime.

In September, he lingered over lunch in Georgia with Laken Riley’s parents, who still grieve their daughter’s death two years ago. The 22-year-old nursing student was murdered by an illegal immigrant while jogging. Her death sparked a national conversation about border security and immigration policy.

Before arriving for an interview with The Epoch Times, he refused to leave an event for victims of crime until he spoke with every angel mom and dad there.

“No matter how many times you hear their stories, you can’t absorb it without emotion, because my worst nightmare is to bury one of my children, and they’ve been through that,” Homan said.

He said he is grateful for the opportunity the president gave him to serve the public.

“Overall, I’m proud to work for this president. I think he’s the greatest president of my lifetime,” he said.