How Firms Sought Connections to Border Czar Tom Homan — ProPublica

The primary time a Pennsylvania marketing consultant 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 performing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, capping a three-decade profession in federal authorities. He and Sowell constructed a rapport, based mostly partly on their shared criticisms of then-President Joe Biden’s border insurance policies.

By 2023, the lads had gone into enterprise collectively. Sowell was paying Homan as a marketing consultant to his boutique agency, SE&M Options, which suggested corporations — in some instances for a payment of $20,000 a month — in search of contracts from the companies 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 harder 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 probably contain billions of {dollars} in new contracts for personal corporations. On the Republican Nationwide Conference speech by which Trump accepted his celebration’s nomination in July, he stated Homan would have a task in launching “the most important deportation operation within the historical past of our nation.”

“Put him in cost,” Trump stated, “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 tip of the yr. As soon as named because the border czar, Homan stated he would recuse himself from contracting, saying he would don’t have any “involvement, dialogue, enter, or choice of any future authorities contracts.”

However a number of business executives who spoke with ProPublica stated a minimum of half a dozen corporations 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 probabilities of successful authorities work.

Homan’s enterprise relationships are below larger 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 put up.

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

Simply final month, Sowell and Homan’s senior adviser Mark Corridor visited certainly one of Sowell’s shoppers in search of to money in on an unprecedented plan by the Trump administration to construct short-term immigrant detention camps on army bases, sources instructed ProPublica. As lately as February, Corridor too had been paid by Sowell’s agency, data present. On the similar time, the extent of Homan’s recusal has been referred to as into query: Information of inner conferences obtained by ProPublica confirmed that over the summer time Homan was in dialog with business executives in regards to the authorities’s contracting plans.

ProPublica gleaned extra particulars than beforehand reported by inspecting federal disclosure kinds, authorities paperwork and inner communications from corporations within the Homeland Safety business, and from interviews with Sowell and several other present and former authorities officers, in addition to executives at corporations in search of 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 keep away from any exercise that might impression their former enterprise associates for a yr after coming into authorities. Discussing immigration-related contracts with business gamers would characterize a “clear-cut violation” of federal ethics laws, stated Don Fox, the previous normal counsel for the Workplace of Authorities Ethics, an unbiased company within the government department.

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

It’s widespread for corporations seeking to land federal contracts to rent consultants and search experience of former authorities staff. 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 instructed Homan must be off limits.

Homan and Corridor didn’t reply to requests for remark. In an interview, Sowell stated he and Homan now not have a monetary relationship. White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated 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 stated.

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

Rising Wealth

Homan spent greater than 30 years in public service, finally rising to change into a senior determine at ICE, a division of the Division of Homeland Safety, throughout the administration of President Barack Obama. He was performing 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 crucial of Biden’s border insurance policies and fashioned the nonprofit Border911 to “educate People on what it means to have a safe, 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 paperwork present. (The kinds checklist 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 report variety of border crossings throughout the Biden administration. The dire scenario on the border, he stated, may require the intervention of the U.S. army and the hiring of personal corporations to hold out a mass deportation marketing campaign. “We’re going to contract as a lot work out as we will, work that doesn’t require a badge and a gun,” Homan instructed Fox Information in 2024.

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

Sowell, sources within the business stated, made it recognized he was bringing collectively a bunch of corporations that could possibly be in line for profitable contracts constructing detention camps for the Trump administration.

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

Hints of Homan’s monetary relationship with Sowell could be present in Homan’s federally required monetary disclosure kinds, which include restricted info. 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 instructed ProPublica their monetary relationship ended final November or December.

Individually, Corridor 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 accordance with his LinkedIn web page.

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

Sowell didn’t identify his shoppers, however ProPublica realized a number of are corporations that construct short-term shelters, staffing companies that provide safety guards and medical corporations that present well being care companies, although they didn’t have direct experience in immigration detention. Sowell stated 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 talk with him anymore, whilst a pal,” he stated.

“Tom is an exceptionally moral individual,” Sowell stated 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 ’ 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 up a correspondence — a minimum of to some extent — with the border czar’s workplace. Final month, he and Corridor flew to go to the Houston places of work of Industrial Tent Programs, a family-owned firm that makes a speciality of rapidly constructing short-term buildings. ProPublica realized that Industrial Tent Programs is certainly one of Sowell’s shoppers. Corridor was there that day to listen to the corporate’s leaders pitch their plan to make use of their tents and companies for immigration detention, even sampling a number of the tacos they have been hoping to serve detainees, in accordance with two sources with information of the assembly.

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

The White Home stated Corridor has by no means been approved by Homan to characterize him.

“It’s uncommon,” stated 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 is able to be completely inappropriate to fulfill with potential contractors.” Typically, he stated, a prime decision-maker wouldn’t meet with a possible contractor, who would sometimes should undergo “quite a few hoops” to even request a gathering that might be denied.

One other one of many corporations in search of experience from Sowell and Homan was USA Up Star, an Indiana-based firm that makes a speciality of constructing short-term services.

Homan and Sowell have been each on the payroll of USA Up Star earlier than Homan was named border czar, in accordance with a number of business sources with direct information of the connection and authorities paperwork.

Homan’s disclosures present solely that USA Up Star paid him as a marketing consultant 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 stated he had no remark.

Navy Contracting

Sowell’s shoppers have been making an attempt to navigate a byzantine however extremely profitable contracting panorama, because the Trump administration has pledged to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day and is in search of to double the variety of detention beds.

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

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

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

Inquiries into Homan’s earlier work within the personal sector and his enterprise relationships are more likely to ramp up following the reviews 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 alternate for the promise of future contracts ought to Trump return to energy, an individual acquainted with the closed investigation stated.

“This matter originated below the earlier administration and was subjected to a full evaluation by FBI brokers and Justice Division prosecutors,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Lawyer Common Todd Blanche stated in a joint assertion. “They discovered no credible proof of any felony wrongdoing. The Division’s sources should stay targeted on actual threats to the American individuals, not baseless investigations. Because of this, the investigation has been closed.”

The White Home press secretary denied that Homan obtained the cash, and Homan has stated 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 in search of audio and video proof from the closed FBI case and have additionally raised questions on Homan’s monetary ties to The Geo Group, a non-public jail agency 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 may finally maintain 5,000 individuals, was awarded to a consortium of corporations led by an organization on the army contracting checklist for over $1 billion. It’s the first of a number of such services deliberate in coming years.

Quite a few Sowell’s shoppers — together with Industrial Tent Programs and USA Up Star — have been among the many near 60 corporations lately added to the WEXMAC. That makes them eligible to bid on these future immigration detention camp contracts.