Trump’s Border Czar Involved in Detention Contract Talks Despite Recusal

 Earlier this year, as a surge in arrests pushed immigration detention centers across the US to their limits, the Trump administration wanted more jail space. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was leading the way on a $45 billion project to detain more immigrants than ever, but the effort was stalling.

White House border czar Tom Homan, who’d said he was picked to run the biggest deportation operation in US history, helped keep the process going — working to move immigration detention contracts through the Department of Defense. 

But Homan wasn't supposed to be involved in contracting at all. Former consulting clients of the border czar were seeking lucrative detention-related work that the administration’s agenda promised. And federal regulations advise those who’ve recently consulted for companies competing for government business not to involve themselves in the contracting process. To quell any concerns, Homan said in December he would recuse himself from anything having to do with government contracts.

In June, it became clear that wasn’t the case. According to a detailed account of a Defense Department meeting that month, a Navy official noted Homan’s participation in a military contracting process, saying the border czar had been “briefed by industry,” government parlance for meeting with private companies seeking contracts. Homan was then expected to discuss the matter with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, according to the account. 

Now, tens of billions of dollars in immigration detention contracts could be issued through that same contracting process. Earlier this month, the Defense Department selected 59 companies qualified to compete for the work. The list included a former Homan client, USA Up Star, and at least three others that have employed SE&M Solutions, a consultancy run by a Homan business associate that appeared on his ethics disclosure as a source of compensation. Most of those companies specialize in so-called soft-sided facilities that Homan has championed as a fast solution to the administration’s need for at least 100,000 detention beds. 

There is no evidence to suggest that Homan has continued to receive payment from USA Up Star or SE&M. But ethics experts who spoke to Bloomberg say Homan’s involvement in an early stage of contracting discussions, even if he’s not picking who is ultimately awarded a contract, raises concerns over the appearance of a conflict of interest that could violate federal rules given his financial relationship with those companies just last year. 

Kathleen Clark, a Washington University law professor who focuses on government ethics, said Homan’s behavior appears to be in violation of a federal ethics regulation that deals with impartiality. The regulation states that government employees should not participate in matters where their relationship with a company competing for contracts — including as a recent employee or consultant — “is likely to raise a question in the mind of a reasonable person about the employee's impartiality.” 

It “appears to be inconsistent not just with his promise in December but with this regulation,” she said. “There’s every reason not to trust the process.”

While industry briefings between government officials and companies can be a normal part of the contracting process, federal rules seek to ensure equal access for competing contractors. It’s unclear how many and which companies were involved in the briefings with Homan that were referenced in the Defense Department’s June meeting. 

Homan did not respond to a request for comment. A White House official said the government’s conflicts of interest rules don’t ban Homan from meeting with private companies and that he has no influence on how government contracts are awarded.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the Defense Department provided a technical description of the contracting vehicle, called the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract, or WEXMAC, and noted that a Navy office was supporting “a national security initiative that includes border security, immigration enforcement, and federal protection efforts within the United States.” 

On Saturday, MSNBC reported that Homan was the subject of a Justice Department probe last year that was then terminated by the Trump administration. Federal prosecutors opened the investigation after the target of a separate probe claimed that Homan was promising to award contracts — in the event of a Donald Trump election win — in exchange for payment. In September 2024, Homan accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover agents after he said he would help steer future contracts their way, MSNBC reported based on an internal summary of the case and people familiar with it.

Both FBI and Justice Department prosecutors were planning to monitor Homan post-election to see if he would deliver on his promise in his official role, according to MSNBC. But the Trump administration dropped the inquiry, calling it a “blatantly political investigation.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later said Homan never accepted the $50,000, and Homan said on Fox News that “I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal.” 

Democrats in Congress have opened inquiries into the Trump administration’s handling of the Homan investigation.

Questions about his role in immigration enforcement contracts arose almost immediately after Trump announced plans to name him border czar in November. The firm Homan owned and ran, Homeland Strategic Consulting, aimed to help private companies win government contracts. Those connections to industry led Homan in December to tell Rolling Stone, “I have recused myself from any involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts that may be awarded by the government.”

In an August response to Bloomberg reporting about Homan’s relationship with contractors vying for immigration detention work, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson reiterated his recusal, adding, “nothing has changed.” 

On Tuesday, Jackson broadened her description of Homan’s involvement, saying he “occasionally meets with a variety of people to learn about new developments and capabilities to serve the needs of the American people — in doing so he continues to adhere to the federal ethics and conflicts of interest rules. Tom has no involvement in the actual awarding of a government contract.”

Bloomberg previously reported that Homan had provided consulting services last year to USA Up Star, an Indiana-based disaster response company that was seeking immigration detention work. USA Up Star appears on an ethics disclosure Homan filed after becoming border czar. On Sept. 4, the company was one of the 59 to receive a preliminary contract from the Defense Department that allows them to compete for up to $20 billion of work under the same program Homan was expected to discuss with Hegseth. Klay South, the owner and president of USA Up Star, recently purchased Texas-based Active Deployment Systems, another company that appears on the Defense Department shortlist. In an email, he declined to comment. 

In July 2024, after Homan spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he took a picture in front of a private jet with South, according to a since-deleted Facebook post. “If you don’t know who the guy in the picture is, I don’t want to tell you,” South wrote in the post. “But we’re making history.”

Among the companies eligible for the detention work are a handful of clients of SE&M Solutions, whose chief executive officer, Charlie Sowell, is on the board of Border911, a nonprofit Homan founded. Last month, Sowell and at least two SE&M clients met in Texas with a senior Homan adviser, Mark Hall, according to a person directly familiar with the meeting who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak about it. USA Up Star also has been a client of Sowell’s, according to two people familiar with the arrangement who asked not to be identified discussing a private relationship. Sowell declined to comment.

Even though prequalifying for the Defense Department process doesn’t guarantee future contracts, just getting a spot on that list is a “big deal,” said Jessica Tillipman, the associate dean for Government Procurement Law Studies at George Washington University Law School. And she said the fact that a White House official with a former client going for that work was involved in early discussions about the process, despite saying he had recused himself, “definitely raises some red flags.”