How Companies Sought Connections to Border Czar Tom Homan — ProPublica

The primary time a Pennsylvania guide named Charles Sowell linked with border czar Tom Homan was when Sowell reached out on LinkedIn in 2021, on the lookout for recommendation about border contracting work. Homan had completed a stint as appearing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, capping a three-decade profession in federal authorities. He and Sowell constructed a rapport, primarily based partly on their shared criticisms of then-President Joe Biden’s border insurance policies.

By 2023, the boys had gone into enterprise collectively. Sowell was paying Homan as a guide to his boutique agency, SE&M Options, which suggested firms — in some circumstances for a charge of $20,000 a month — searching for contracts from the businesses the place Homan had as soon as labored. In 2024, Sowell grew to become chair of the board of Homan’s basis, Border911, which championed more durable border safety.

Throughout his 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Donald Trump made it clear that if he received reelection he would appoint Homan to supervise the sweeping crackdown on unlawful immigration that he’d promised his supporters, which might possible contain billions of {dollars} in new contracts for personal firms. On the Republican Nationwide Conference speech wherein Trump accepted his occasion’s nomination in July, he mentioned Homan would have a job in launching “the most important deportation operation within the historical past of our nation.”

“Put him in cost,” Trump mentioned, “and simply sit again and watch.”

After Trump received and formally introduced Homan could be returning with him to the White Home, Sowell saved Homan on his payroll till the top of the yr. As soon as named because the border czar, Homan mentioned he would recuse himself from contracting, saying he would don’t have any “involvement, dialogue, enter, or determination of any future authorities contracts.”

However a number of trade executives who spoke with ProPublica mentioned at the least half a dozen firms vying for a slice of the $45 billion Congress has allotted for immigration detention work had employed Sowell as a result of he had led them to consider his connections to Homan would assist their possibilities of successful authorities work.

Homan’s enterprise relationships are underneath higher scrutiny after MSNBC reported an FBI sting that allegedly caught him on tape accepting $50,000 in money from undercover brokers posing as would-be authorities contractors earlier than he took the border czar publish.

His relationship with Sowell raises contemporary questions in regards to the integrity of the billion-dollar contracting course of for immigration enforcement, ethics specialists say.

Simply final month, Sowell and Homan’s senior adviser Mark Corridor visited one among Sowell’s purchasers searching for to money in on an unprecedented plan by the Trump administration to construct momentary immigrant detention camps on army bases, sources informed ProPublica. As lately as February, Corridor too had been paid by Sowell’s agency, information present. On the similar time, the extent of Homan’s recusal has been known as into query: Data of inside conferences obtained by ProPublica confirmed that over the summer time Homan was in dialog with trade executives in regards to the authorities’s contracting plans.

ProPublica gleaned extra particulars than beforehand reported by inspecting federal disclosure kinds, authorities paperwork and inside communications from corporations within the Homeland Safety trade, and from interviews with Sowell and a number of other present and former authorities officers, in addition to executives at firms searching for contracts within the burgeoning detention sector. Most spoke on situation of anonymity due to their ongoing work within the sector.

Authorities officers in Homan’s place are required to avoid any exercise that might impression their former enterprise associates for a yr after coming into authorities. Discussing immigration-related contracts with trade gamers would signify a “clear-cut violation” of federal ethics laws, mentioned Don Fox, the previous common counsel for the Workplace of Authorities Ethics, an unbiased company within the govt department.

“You shouldn’t be in these briefings,” Fox mentioned. “You might be both recused or you aren’t.”

It’s frequent for firms seeking to land federal contracts to rent consultants and search experience of former authorities workers. These relationships are topic to federal ethics guidelines designed to protect towards conflicts of curiosity. The White Home and DHS didn’t present requested copies of Homan’s formal recusal paperwork, which could define precisely what sorts of actions authorities attorneys informed Homan ought to be off limits.

Homan and Corridor didn’t reply to requests for remark. In an interview, Sowell mentioned he and Homan now not have a monetary relationship. White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson mentioned Homan has “no involvement within the precise awarding of a authorities contract.”

In his position as border czar, Homan “often meets with a wide range of individuals to find out about new developments and capabilities to serve the wants of the American individuals,” she mentioned.

Kathleen Clark, a legislation professor at Washington College in St. Louis and an skilled in authorities ethics, mentioned, nevertheless, “It’s not nearly tainted awards. If the trade believes the system is corrupt, then the general public is harmed. And the harm has already been performed.”

Rising Wealth

Homan spent greater than 30 years in public service, finally rising to turn into a senior determine at ICE, a division of the Division of Homeland Safety, in the course of the administration of President Barack Obama. He was appearing ICE director throughout Trump’s first time period till he left authorities seven years in the past.

Whereas out of public workplace, Homan was extremely vital of Biden’s border insurance policies and shaped the nonprofit Border911 to “educate Individuals on what it means to have a secure, well-managed border.”

Homan’s private-sector work earlier than he returned to authorities remodeled his funds. In 2017, he declared belongings totaling a most of simply $250,000 on his ethics disclosures following a profession in federal service, a determine that excludes sure authorities retirement accounts.

By 2025, his internet price had grown to between $3 million to $9 million, the disclosure documents present. (The kinds listing belongings in ranges, and a portion of his internet price could come from cash he had saved in authorities retirement accounts.)

In his years out of presidency, Homan grew to become a family identify in conservative circles as a frequent contributor on Fox Information. He began a consulting agency and was paid for public talking engagements across the nation, elevating alarms in regards to the document variety of border crossings in the course of the Biden administration. The dire scenario on the border, he mentioned, might require the intervention of the U.S. army and the hiring of personal firms to hold out a mass deportation marketing campaign. “We’re going to contract as a lot work out as we are able to, work that doesn’t require a badge and a gun,” Homan informed Fox Information in 2024.

After Trump made clear his intentions to faucet Homan as border czar, Sowell reached out to authorities contracting specialists, saying he was working with Homan’s Border911 Basis to assist streamline procurement for the incoming administration’s mass deportation coverage, mentioned two individuals who spoke with him.

Sowell, sources within the trade mentioned, made it recognized he was bringing collectively a gaggle of firms that may very well be in line for profitable contracts constructing detention camps for the Trump administration.

In an interview with ProPublica in June, Sowell mentioned when his purchasers needed to know DHS higher, he would usher in Homan to get his perspective as a former senior ICE chief. Bloomberg recently reported about features of Homan’s enterprise dealings with Sowell.

Hints of Homan’s monetary relationship with Sowell might be present in Homan’s federally required monetary disclosure kinds, which include restricted data. The kinds report that Sowell’s agency paid Homan some sum of cash — greater than $5,000 — someday between 2023 and early 2025. They don’t say how a lot or precisely when he was paid, however Sowell informed ProPublica their monetary relationship ended final November or December.

Individually, Hall disclosed he was paid $50,000 by Sowell for consulting in January and February earlier than he entered authorities in February. Corridor additionally was a part-time board member on the Border911 basis from April 2024 to February, in line with his LinkedIn web page.

Sowell made public his affinity for Homan at an trade convention in April, the place many main gamers had been current: He spent $20,000 at a charity public sale to buy a commemorative quilt constructed from Border Patrol agent vests. It was signed by Homan.

Sowell didn’t identify his purchasers, however ProPublica discovered a number of are firms that construct momentary shelters, staffing businesses that provide safety guards and medical firms that present well being care providers, although they didn’t have direct experience in immigration detention. Sowell mentioned he couldn’t touch upon his conversations with Homan since Homan went again into authorities. “I don’t have quite a lot of alternatives to speak with him anymore, whilst a good friend,” he mentioned.

“Tom is an exceptionally moral particular person,” Sowell mentioned within the June interview, including that his and Homan’s work steered away from any actual or perceived conflicts of curiosity. “I’m exceptionally happy with this administration for not doing that kind of ‘it’s who you already know’ versus ‘what you are able to do’ kind of contracting.”

Requested about further particulars on this story earlier than publication, Sowell declined to remark.

Sowell seems to nonetheless keep in touch — at the least to some extent — with the border czar’s workplace. Final month, he and Corridor flew to go to the Houston workplaces of Industrial Tent Methods, a family-owned firm that makes a speciality of rapidly constructing momentary constructions. ProPublica discovered that Industrial Tent Methods is one among Sowell’s purchasers. Corridor was there that day to listen to the corporate’s leaders pitch their plan to make use of their tents and providers for immigration detention, even sampling among the tacos they had been hoping to serve detainees, in line with two sources with data of the assembly.

Industrial Tent Methods didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The White Home mentioned Corridor has by no means been licensed by Homan to signify him.

“It’s uncommon,” mentioned Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Safety who served as drug czar for Obama, when requested in regards to the assembly. “As an adviser this may be completely inappropriate to satisfy with potential contractors.” Typically, he mentioned, a high decision-maker wouldn’t meet with a possible contractor, who would sometimes must undergo “quite a few hoops” to even request a gathering that could be denied.

One other one of many firms searching for experience from Sowell and Homan was USA Up Star, an Indiana-based firm that makes a speciality of constructing momentary amenities.

Homan and Sowell had been each on the payroll of USA Up Star earlier than Homan was named border czar, in line with a number of trade sources with direct data of the connection and authorities paperwork.

Homan’s disclosures present solely that USA Up Star paid him as a guide someday between 2023 and early 2025, however don’t element how a lot or when. Throughout this time, an image of Homan and the corporate’s proprietor and founder, Klay South, standing in entrance of a non-public jet was posted on social media. South mentioned he had no remark.

Army Contracting

Sowell’s purchasers have been attempting to navigate a byzantine however extremely profitable contracting panorama, because the Trump administration has pledged to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day and is searching for to double the variety of detention beds.

Early this yr, the Trump administration drew up plans to construct a sequence of large detention camps on army bases to carry immigrants as a part of a deportation effort, the primary of which was planned for Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

The administration got here up with a novel method to fund that camp, drawing on a contracting course of run by the U.S. army often known as the WEXMAC (which stands for Worldwide Expeditionary A number of Award Contract). Homan spoke to firms within the trade about these plans.

Data obtained by ProPublica present a contracting officer on the Division of Protection, which the administration now calls the Division of Warfare, saying in a gathering that Homan had been speaking to firms in regards to the WEXMAC. “Border czar has been briefed by trade,” the official knowledgeable his colleagues. ”Border czar is most certainly going to say one thing to SECDEF,” the official continued, referring to Secretary of Protection Peter Hegseth. Bloomberg also reported on the June assembly.

Inquiries into Homan’s earlier work within the non-public sector and his enterprise relationships are prone to ramp up following the reports of the $50,000 undercover sting. That federal investigation into Homan was launched after the topic of one other inquiry — not Sowell — claimed the border czar was soliciting funds in trade for the promise of future contracts ought to Trump return to energy, an individual aware of the closed investigation mentioned.

“This matter originated underneath the earlier administration and was subjected to a full evaluate by FBI brokers and Justice Division prosecutors,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Legal professional Common Todd Blanche mentioned in a joint assertion. “They discovered no credible proof of any felony wrongdoing. The Division’s assets should stay centered on actual threats to the American individuals, not baseless investigations. Consequently, the investigation has been closed.”

The White Home press secretary denied that Homan acquired the cash, and Homan has mentioned he has performed nothing unlawful. He has not been charged with any offense, and neither Corridor nor Sowell has been accused of wrongdoing.

Democratic lawmakers are seeking audio and video evidence from the closed FBI case and have additionally raised questions on Homan’s monetary ties to The Geo Group, a private prison firm he beforehand consulted for that has received profitable contracts in latest months. The Geo Group didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Tens of billions of {dollars} of further funding for immigration enforcement have but to be spent. The detention camp contract at Fort Bliss, which might finally maintain 5,000 individuals, was awarded to a consortium of corporations led by an organization on the army contracting listing for over $1 billion. It’s the first of a number of such amenities deliberate in coming years.

Plenty of Sowell’s purchasers — together with Industrial Tent Methods and USA Up Star — had been among the many near 60 firms lately added to the WEXMAC. That makes them eligible to bid on these future immigration detention camp contracts.