The primary time a Pennsylvania guide named Charles Sowell hooked up with border czar Tom Homan used to be when Sowell reached out on LinkedIn in 2021, on the lookout for recommendation about border contracting paintings. Homan had completed a stint as appearing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, capping a three-decade occupation in federal executive. He and Sowell constructed a rapport, founded in part on their shared criticisms of then-President Joe Biden’s border insurance policies.
Through 2023, the lads had long gone into trade in combination. Sowell used to be paying Homan as a expert to his boutique company, SE&M Answers, which prompt firms — in some circumstances for a price of $20,000 a month — in search of contracts from the businesses the place Homan had as soon as labored. In 2024, Sowell changed into chair of the board of Homan’s basis, Border911, which championed harder border safety.
Throughout his 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Donald Trump made it clean 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 most probably contain billions of greenbacks in new contracts for personal firms. On the Republican Nationwide Conference speech through which Trump permitted his celebration’s nomination in July, he stated Homan would have a job in launching “the most important deportation operation within the historical past of our nation.”
“Put him in fee,” Trump stated, “and simply take a seat again and watch.”
After Trump received and officially introduced Homan could be returning with him to the White Area, Sowell stored 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, announcing he would don’t have any “involvement, dialogue, enter, or resolution of any long run executive contracts.”
However a number of business executives who spoke with ProPublica stated no less than part a dozen firms vying for a slice of the $45 billion Congress has allotted for immigration detention paintings had employed Sowell as a result of he had led them to consider his connections to Homan would assist their possibilities of profitable executive paintings.
Homan’s trade relationships are below larger scrutiny after MSNBC reported an FBI sting that allegedly stuck him on tape accepting $50,000 in money from undercover brokers posing as would-be executive contractors earlier than he took the border czar publish.
His dating with Sowell raises recent questions in regards to the integrity of the billion-dollar contracting procedure for immigration enforcement, ethics professionals say.
Simply final month, Sowell and Homan’s senior adviser Mark Corridor visited certainly one of Sowell’s purchasers in search of to money in on an exceptional plan by way of the Trump management to construct transient immigrant detention camps on army bases, assets advised ProPublica. As lately as February, Corridor too have been paid by way of Sowell’s company, data display. On the similar time, the level of Homan’s recusal has been referred to as into query: Information of interior conferences bought by way of ProPublica confirmed that over the summer time Homan used to be in dialog with business executives in regards to the executive’s contracting plans.
ProPublica gleaned extra main points than up to now reported by way of inspecting federal disclosure paperwork, executive paperwork and interior communications from companies within the Place of birth Safety business, and from interviews with Sowell and a number of other present and previous executive officers, in addition to executives at firms in search of contracts within the burgeoning detention sector. Maximum spoke on situation of anonymity on account of their ongoing paintings within the sector.
Executive officers in Homan’s place are required to keep away from any task that would affect their former trade mates for a yr after getting into executive. Discussing immigration-related contracts with business avid gamers would constitute a “simple violation” of federal ethics laws, stated Don Fox, the previous common suggest for the Workplace of Executive Ethics, an impartial company within the govt department.
“You shouldn’t be in the ones briefings,” Fox stated. “You might be both recused otherwise you don’t seem to be.”
It’s commonplace for corporations taking a look to land federal contracts to rent experts and search experience of former executive staff. The ones relationships are topic to federal ethics laws designed to protect towards conflicts of passion. The White Area and DHS didn’t supply asked copies of Homan’s formal recusal paperwork, which may define precisely what types of actions executive attorneys advised Homan must be off limits.
Homan and Corridor didn’t reply to requests for remark. In an interview, Sowell stated he and Homan not have a monetary dating. White Area spokesperson Abigail Jackson stated Homan has “no involvement in the true awarding of a central authority contract.”
In his function as border czar, Homan “sometimes meets with numerous folks to be told about new tendencies and functions to serve the wishes of the American folks,” she stated.
Kathleen Clark, a regulation professor at Washington College in St. Louis and knowledgeable in executive ethics, stated, alternatively, “It’s now not on the subject of tainted awards. If the business believes the gadget is corrupt, then the general public is harmed. And the wear and tear has already been carried out.”
Rising Wealth
Homan spent greater than 30 years in public provider, ultimately emerging to turn into a senior determine at ICE, a department of the Division of Place of birth Safety, right through the management of President Barack Obama. He used to be appearing ICE director right through Trump’s first time period till he left executive seven years in the past.
Whilst out of public workplace, Homan used to be extremely important of Biden’s border insurance policies and shaped the nonprofit Border911 to “teach American citizens on what it manner to have a safe, well-managed border.”
Homan’s private-sector paintings earlier than he returned to executive reworked his funds. In 2017, he declared belongings totaling a most of simply $250,000 on his ethics disclosures following a occupation in federal provider, a determine that excludes sure executive retirement accounts.
Through 2025, his internet price had grown to between $3 million to $9 million, the disclosure paperwork display. (The paperwork checklist belongings in levels, and a portion of his internet price might come from cash he had stored in executive retirement accounts.)
In his years out of presidency, Homan changed into a family title in conservative circles as a common contributor on Fox Information. He began a consulting company and used to be paid for public talking engagements across the nation, elevating alarms in regards to the document choice of border crossings right through the Biden management. The dire state of affairs on the border, he stated, may 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 determine as we will be able to, paintings that doesn’t require a badge and a gun,” Homan advised Fox Information in 2024.
After Trump made clean his intentions to faucet Homan as border czar, Sowell reached out to executive contracting professionals, announcing he used to be operating with Homan’s Border911 Basis to assist streamline procurement for the incoming management’s mass deportation coverage, stated two individuals who spoke with him.
Sowell, assets within the business stated, made it recognized he used to be bringing in combination a gaggle of businesses that may be in line for profitable contracts construction detention camps for the Trump management.
In an interview with ProPublica in June, Sowell stated when his purchasers sought after to grasp DHS higher, he would usher in Homan to get his point of view as a former senior ICE chief. Bloomberg lately reported about facets of Homan’s trade dealings with Sowell.
Hints of Homan’s monetary dating with Sowell can also be present in Homan’s federally required monetary disclosure paperwork, which include restricted knowledge. The paperwork record that Sowell’s company paid Homan some amount of money — greater than $5,000 — someday between 2023 and early 2025. They don’t say how a lot or precisely when he used to be paid, however Sowell advised ProPublica their monetary dating ended final November or December.
One by one, Corridor disclosed he used to be paid $50,000 by way of Sowell for consulting in January and February earlier than he entered executive in February. Corridor additionally used to be a part-time board member on the Border911 basis from April 2024 to February, in step with his LinkedIn web page.
Sowell made public his affinity for Homan at an business convention in April, the place many primary avid gamers had been provide: He spent $20,000 at a charity public sale to buy a commemorative cover constructed from Border Patrol agent vests. It used to be signed by way of Homan.
Sowell didn’t title his purchasers, however ProPublica discovered a number of are firms that construct transient shelters, staffing businesses that provide safety guards and scientific firms that offer well being care products and services, regardless that 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 executive. “I don’t have numerous 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 paintings recommended clean of any actual or perceived conflicts of passion. “I’m exceptionally pleased with this management for now not doing that form of ‘it’s who you recognize’ as opposed to ‘what you’ll do’ form of contracting.”
Requested about further main points on this tale earlier than e-newsletter, Sowell declined to remark.
Sowell seems to nonetheless keep up a correspondence — no less than to some degree — with the border czar’s workplace. Ultimate month, he and Corridor flew to talk over with the Houston places of work of Commercial Tent Techniques, a family-owned corporate that focuses on briefly construction transient constructions. ProPublica discovered that Commercial Tent Techniques is certainly one of Sowell’s purchasers. Corridor used to be there that day to listen to the corporate’s leaders pitch their plan to make use of their tents and products and services for immigration detention, even sampling one of the tacos they had been hoping to serve detainees, in step with two assets with wisdom of the assembly.
Commercial Tent Techniques didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The White Area stated Corridor hasn’t ever been approved by way of Homan to constitute him.
“It’s strange,” stated Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Coverage who served as drug czar for Obama, when requested in regards to the assembly. “As an adviser this could be completely beside the point to satisfy with doable contractors.” Most often, he stated, a most sensible decision-maker would now not meet with a possible contractor, who would most often have to move thru “a large number of hoops” to even request a gathering that could be denied.
Any other one of the vital firms in search of experience from Sowell and Homan used to be USA Up Megastar, an Indiana-based corporate that focuses on construction transient amenities.
Homan and Sowell had been each at the payroll of USA Up Megastar earlier than Homan used to be named border czar, in step with a number of business assets with direct wisdom of the connection and executive paperwork.
Homan’s disclosures display most effective that USA Up Megastar paid him as a expert 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, status in entrance of a personal jet used to be posted on social media. South stated he had no remark.
Army Contracting
Sowell’s purchasers were seeking to navigate a byzantine however extremely profitable contracting panorama, because the Trump management has pledged to arrest 3,000 immigrants an afternoon and is looking for to double the choice of detention beds.
Early this yr, the Trump management drew up plans to construct a chain of big detention camps on army bases to carry immigrants as a part of a deportation effort, the primary of which used to be deliberate for Citadel Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
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Paul Ratje/Reuters
The management got here up with a singular technique to fund that camp, drawing on a contracting procedure run by way of the U.S. army referred to as the WEXMAC (which stands for International Expeditionary More than one Award Contract). Homan spoke to firms within the business about the ones plans.
Information bought by way of ProPublica display a contracting officer on the Division of Protection, which the management now calls the Division of Warfare, announcing in a gathering that Homan have been speaking to firms in regards to the WEXMAC. “Border czar has been briefed by way of business,” the legit knowledgeable his colleagues. ”Border czar is in all probability going to mention one thing to SECDEF,” the legit persisted, regarding Secretary of Protection Peter Hegseth. Bloomberg additionally reported at the June assembly.
Inquiries into Homan’s earlier paintings within the deepest sector and his trade relationships are more likely to ramp up following the experiences of the $50,000 undercover sting. That federal investigation into Homan used to be introduced after the topic of any other inquiry — now not Sowell — claimed the border czar used to be soliciting bills in change for the promise of long run contracts must Trump go back to energy, an individual aware of the closed investigation stated.
“This topic originated below the former management and used to be subjected to a complete evaluation by way of FBI brokers and Justice Division prosecutors,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche stated in a joint observation. “They discovered no credible proof of any legal wrongdoing. The Division’s assets should stay all in favour of actual threats to the American folks, now not baseless investigations. Because of this, the investigation has been closed.”
The White Area press secretary denied that Homan gained the cash, and Homan has stated he has carried out not anything unlawful. He has now 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 feature additionally raised questions on Homan’s monetary ties to The Geo Team, a personal jail company he up to now consulted for that has received profitable contracts in fresh months. The Geo Team didn’t respond to a request for remark.
Tens of billions of greenbacks of extra investment for immigration enforcement have not begun to be spent. The detention camp contract at Citadel Bliss, which might ultimately hang 5,000 folks, used to be awarded to a consortium of companies led by way of an organization at the army contracting checklist for over $1 billion. It’s the first of a number of such amenities deliberate in coming years.
A variety of Sowell’s purchasers — together with Commercial Tent Techniques and USA Up Megastar — had been a few of the with regards to 60 firms lately added to the WEXMAC. That makes them eligible to bid on the ones long run immigration detention camp contracts.
Kirsten Berg and Al Shaw contributed analysis. Joel Jacobs contributed knowledge research.
