Tom Homan Reveals Heartbreaking Reason He Fights To Secure Border
Border enforcement chief Tom Homan is offering a deeply personal explanation for why he returned to serve under President Donald J. Trump—and it’s rooted in decades of firsthand exposure to the brutal realities of illegal immigration and human trafficking.
In an interview with Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow, Homan detailed the emotional toll of his career, which began in 1984 with the U.S. Border Patrol and eventually led to his role as the first director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I mean, this is the second time I came out of retirement for the president. It’s hard to say no to the president of the United States and help him fix something where thousands of lives have been lost,” Homan said. “So I knew the hate was coming. And, you know, unfortunately, my family pays the price. I haven’t lived with my family in months because of the death threats against me. But my family understands the important mission.”
Homan made clear that his stance on border security is not theoretical—it is shaped by decades of witnessing violence, exploitation, and death tied to cartel-driven smuggling operations.
“If they held the dead children I’ve held, talked to little girls as young as 9 who were raped multiple times by handlers from the cartel, standing on the back of a tractor-trailer when 19 people are at your feet because they baked to death, including a 5-year-old boy…running operation in Arizona where alien smuggling cartels are ripping bodies from each other with drugs, and when someone couldn’t pay their smuggling fees, they’d torture them and call their relatives and let them listen while they torture them and kill them because they couldn’t pay the fees. These are just a few things,” Homan said.
“If you wore my shoes for three and a half decade, you wouldn’t ask that question because I’ve seen so much tragedy in my life, it’s who I am today,” he added. “So when I’m getting asked to come back and secure the border and you know it’s going to save lives, how do you say no to that?”
At one point, Homan became visibly emotional recounting specific tragedies that have stayed with him—particularly the deaths of a young boy and a teenage girl encountered during his time in the field.
“The two that break my heart is the 19 dead aliens in the back of a tractor-trailer. When I arrived on that crime scene, when I got to the back of that tractor-trailer, there were several bodies that already hit the ground and when the doors finally opened, people rushed out to get air and some of the dead bodies, that were fighting for a small hole where the break light used to be to breath, were pushed out,” Homan detailed.
“When I looked back in there, I saw a little boy in his underwear, turned out to be five years old, dead. With … his father who was cradling him on top of him. Most of them, if not all of them, were in their underwear because they were trying to get some relief from the serious heat in that steel box,” he said.
For Homan, these experiences underscore what he views as the human cost of lax border enforcement—fueling his unwavering support for stronger policies under President Trump’s second-term agenda.
Meanwhile, immigration enforcement remains a flashpoint at the state level. Kathy Hochul confirmed she met with Homan to discuss concerns about potential federal immigration operations in New York.
“It was an important conversation to be had, for him to hear directly from me the current concerns I have on behalf of New Yorkers,” Hochul said.
The meeting comes amid broader coordination efforts between federal and state leaders, with the administration signaling it is open to cooperation where local officials are willing.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson emphasized that approach in a statement.
“As the Trump Administration has repeatedly stressed, we want to work with local leaders to keep their communities safe from dangerous, criminal illegal aliens,” Jackson said. “The Administration, including Tom Homan, remains committed to having these conversations with anyone willing to have them. And we will continue acting on our mandate to enforce federal immigration law.”
Hochul also previously met with President Trump during a gathering of the National Governors Association, where she raised concerns about a potential surge in ICE activity.
“The president said, ‘We’ll only go where we’re wanted.’ And said, for example, ‘I won’t go to New York unless Kathy calls and says she wants me to come to New York,’” Hochul said.
As the administration continues its push to restore border enforcement, Homan’s remarks serve as a stark reminder of the real-world consequences driving that policy—far beyond the political rhetoric dominating Washington.