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Mother Jones illustration; Yuri Gripas\/Pool\/CNP\/Zuma; Getty<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jin Kang,<\/span> the CEO of a telecom and IT company, was talking to stock analysts this past spring, when he was asked about the company\u2019s prospects for winning government contracts.<\/p>\n Kang said his firm, WidePoint, had technology that could help the Department of Homeland Security track down cellphones given to immigrants who had been released on bail, pending deportation hearings. All the company needed was a foot in the door.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019ve been trying to get access to Tom Homan and the folks over at DHS at the secretary level,\u201d Kang said<\/a>. \u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten some\u2026traction, but it\u2019s too early to tell, but we are knocking on the doors of the various political operatives so that they could get us in the door to talk about the potential savings that we could provide.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Kang\u2019s statement stands out because Homan, prior to joining the second Trump administration as its \u201cborder czar,\u201d ran a consulting firm that helped<\/a> companies pursue government contracts. It does not appear that WidePoint was a Homan client, but other current contractors were. Homan has vowed<\/a>, as federal ethics guidance advises, to stay out of federal procurement decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are knocking on the doors of the various political operatives so that they could get us in the door.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Kang\u2019s claim is even more striking in light of news reports that Homan was recorded<\/a> last year accepting<\/a> $50,000 in a Cava bag from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen paying for help winning government contracts in a second Trump administration.\u00a0Homan has said<\/a> he did nothing illegal and has stated<\/a> that he \u201cdidn\u2019t take $50,000 from anybody.\u201d Trump\u2019s Justice Department ultimately dropped the matter after investigators, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi, \u201cfound no credible evidence of any wrongdoing.\u201d The White House has called the FBI probe \u201ca blatantly political investigation\u201d by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n Kang\u2019s WidePoint, which won a DHS cellphone contract in the last months of President Donald Trump\u2019s first term and is angling to win another worth up to $3 billion<\/a>, is just one of several companies that have reportedly tried to enlist Homan\u2019s help in drumming up federal contracts.<\/p>\n In June, Homan met with companies seeking contracts to build new immigration detention facilities, Bloomberg reported<\/a>. Many of those contracts are being awarded by the US military, and Homan, according to the report, \u201cwas then expected to discuss the matter with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In addition, a review by Mother Jones <\/em>and the Project On Government Oversight shows that a number of Homan\u2019s former clients from his time in the private sector have been awarded\u00a0lucrative border and immigration-related contracts during the second Trump administration. Those projects include constructing private prisons, sprawling migrant detention camps, and a section of border wall. It is not clear whether Homan has played any role in helping his former clients land these deals\u2014the White House says he has no involvement in the \u201cactual awarding\u201d of contracts.<\/p>\n Regardless, the pattern highlights what critics call the legalized corruption of Washington. While Homan denies taking a bag of cash to rig a contract, he openly ran a business in which he traded on his years of government work and high-level contacts to help clients who paid him prosper in the procurement process. Now that he is back in government, even the impression that he can influence federal contract awards creates the appearance of corruption, ethics experts argue.<\/p>\n Among would-be contractors, \u201cthe perception is that Homan can put in a good word\u2014whether compensated or not compensated in cash, with or without a bag man\u2014and in some sense, the damage is done,\u201d said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies government ethics. Homan\u2019s perceived influence, even after the alleged bag incident, sends \u201cthe message\u2026that this is not disqualifying and people who want some portion of the trough that is DHS at this point can look to Homan, among others, for assistance,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n Homan referred questions to White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, who dismissed concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the Border Czar, Tom Homan occasionally meets with a variety of people to learn about new developments and capabilities to serve the needs of the American people \u2013 in doing so he continues to adhere to the federal ethics and [conflict] of interests rules,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cTom has no involvement in the actual awarding of a government contract. Tom is a career law enforcement officer and lifelong public servant, with the utmost integrity, who is doing a phenomenal job on behalf of President Trump and the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A White House official also said Homan \u201chas not had any conversations, nor been involved in any conversations,\u201d with WidePoint or any of the other companies discussed in this article \u201cregarding contracts or business interests.\u201d The official said Homan, a White House employee, has \u201cno role in deciding or awarding contracts for DHS.\u201d<\/p>\n Homan was<\/span> well-situated to capitalize on his insights and government connections. He spent three decades working for the US Border Patrol and in 2013 was appointed to a high-ranking position with ICE by President Barack Obama\u2014a post in which Homan pioneered the idea of using family separations as a tool to discourage illegal immigration.<\/p>\n Homan stayed on into the first Trump administration, but left his role as acting ICE director in June 2018\u2014soon after the public outcry over family separations reached a fever pitch.<\/p>\n Homan\u2019s consulting company boasted that it has \u201ca proven track record of opening doors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Apparently, he already had been planning a leap to the private sector. In May 2018\u2014just days after he announced<\/a> that he would leave the administration\u2014the state of Virginia approved paperwork incorporating a new business he founded, called Homeland Strategic Consulting. He spent the rest of Trump\u2019s first term and the Biden years transforming himself from a lifetime government official into an advocate with insider perspectives and connections to the powerful for the many business interests trying to score government deals.<\/p>\n As of last December, the website of Homan\u2019s consulting company boasted<\/a> that the firm has \u201ca proven track record of opening doors and bringing successful relationships to our clients, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts to private companies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2021, Homan\u2019s firm registered<\/a> to lobby in Texas for Fisher Sand & Gravel, a North Dakota-based construction company that was seeking work building portions of border wall. Texas records show Fisher paid Homeland Strategic Consulting up to $186,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fisher is a controversial company. In 2019, it built<\/a> short sections of border wall in Texas and New Mexico. The work was financed by \u201cWe Build the Wall,\u201d an effort involving Steve Bannon in which organizers crowdsourced private donations to fence off the country from Mexico. In 2020, We Build the Wall founder Brian Kolfage, Bannon, and two other men were charged with defrauding donors by misappropriating money they raised. While the other three defendants were convicted and jailed, Bannon escaped federal prosecution when Trump pardoned<\/a> him hours before leaving office in 2021. Bannon pleaded guilty<\/a> in February to defrauding donors in a similar case brought by Manhattan\u2019s district attorney.<\/p>\n The sections of wall Fisher did complete have been lambasted<\/a> as poorly built. In 2022, Fisher reached<\/a> an undisclosed agreement with the Justice Department to settle a lawsuit<\/a> over the project. Fisher has also repeatedly been sued<\/a> by environmental groups.<\/p>\n But Fisher, whose CEO Tommy Fisher has supported<\/a> many GOP lawmakers, has tapped Trump world support to continue landing contracts. Last year, with Homan\u2019s help, the company scored a $225 million contract from Texas to build a new section of border wall there. And in June 2025, this erstwhile Homan client won a $309 million contract<\/a> from Customs and Border Protection to build a 27-mile section of wall in Arizona\u2019s Santa Cruz County. The company did not respond to inquiries.<\/p>\n Fisher isn\u2019t the only former Homan client<\/a> continuing to seek federal contracts that intersect with Homan\u2019s White House portfolio.<\/p>\n USA Up Star, a company that specializes in quickly constructing temporary buildings in response to emergencies, is a former client of Homan\u2019s that donated $100,000<\/a> to the Trump-Vance inauguration committee in January and $15,000 in June 2024<\/a> to a pro-Trump super-PAC<\/a> called Right for America. A Federal Election Committee database does not show any other corporate contributions from that company, though its owner and president, Klay South, previously donated<\/a> to PACs supporting Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n In the months before the 2024 election, according to Bloomberg<\/a>, \u201cUSA Up Star executives had regular calls and meetings with Homan to explore an expansion into immigration detention.\u201d The construction company, Bloomberg reported, was pitching \u201ca sprawling tent camp in El Paso, Texas, where people would be held in pens and surveilled from overhead by guards in wooden structures.\u201d<\/p>\n This September, the US Navy awarded a massive border security and immigration enforcement contract to dozens of companies, including USA Up Star. The deal could ultimately be worth up to $20 billion for each contractor over several years, according to a government press release<\/a>. The contract includes work providing \u201csafe and secure confinement for aliens in the administrative custody of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),\u201d per contracting records<\/a>, as well as less controversial work, such as providing support in response to natural disasters.<\/p>\n In response to written questions, South declined to comment. He also wrote: \u201cGet Fucked.\u201d<\/p>\n Another past Homan client is SE&M Solutions, a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm that, like Homan\u2019s former consultancy, helps other companies win government contracts. SE&M\u2019s CEO is Charles Sowell, who also serves as chairman<\/a> of the board of the Border911 Foundation, a border security-focused nonprofit founded and led by Homan. According to Sowell\u2019s bio, he served in the Navy for 27 years, managed a Texas-based federal facility for unaccompanied migrant children in 2021, and attended the Border Patrol Industry Academy. USA Up Star is also an SE&M client, per reporting from ProPublica<\/a>. SE&M\u2019s website has touted \u201caccess to senior leaders in government<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In August, according to Bloomberg<\/a>, two SE&M clients met with Mark Hall<\/a>, a top adviser to Homan who works in the administration. Hall is a former longtime Border Patrol agent who also served<\/a> as a Border911 Foundation board member. (Another former board member is Rodney Scott, the head of Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency for the Border Patrol.) SE&M Solutions and Border911 did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n And then<\/span> there\u2019s GEO Group, a private prison behemoth that runs a sprawling network of immigrant detention centers. ICE\u2019s largest contractor, GEO Group also offers related services such as transporting detainees and tracking immigrants who are not detained. Homan reported on his financial disclosure form that he had worked as a consultant for GEO\u2019s health care arm during the prior year.<\/p>\n GEO Group donated $500,000<\/a> to the Trump-Vance inauguration. That\u2019s in addition to 2024 contributions from GEO\u2019s political action committee, senior executives, and a GEO subsidiary totaling more than $1 million to Trump-aligned political entities, according to a Project On Government Oversight review<\/a> of Federal Election Commission records.<\/p>\n GEO has seen its fortunes rise this year as the current administration has set new records for the number of people held in immigration detention, recently hitting 66,000. The population of detainees is up nearly 70 percent since Trump\u2019s inauguration<\/a>\u2014the vast majority<\/a> have no criminal convictions. Since Inauguration Day, ICE has awarded GEO new detention contracts collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars<\/a> per year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis represents the largest amount of new business we have won in a single year in our Company\u2019s history,\u201d George Zoley, GEO Group\u2019s executive chairman, said in a November statement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n GEO did not respond to a request for comment. But it has been vocal about benefiting from the Trump administration\u2019s immigration policies. \u201cAs a long-standing support services provider for ICE with a 40-year-long track record, we believe we are uniquely positioned to assist the agency to meet its objectives,\u201d Zoley said<\/a> over the summer.<\/p>\n This story was reported with the <\/em>Project On Government Oversight<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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