A Former Border Patrol Agent On Tom Homan—Trump’s “Border Czar”

A Former Border Patrol Agent

I’ve been asked by a couple of people what my thoughts are on Tom Homan, Trump’s “Border Czar” (or is it Border Tsar?). Is Homan the real deal, or is he another deep state charlatan? Well, I read his book Defend the Border and Save Lives: Solving Our Most Important Humanitarian and Security Crisis a few years ago. While I won’t re-read it in its entirety, he does come across as meaning what he says. It’s not just rhetoric.

Now, Homan reminds me of a friend who is a cop. They say some people are drawn to law enforcement, and my friend fits that bill. My friend even looks a little like Homan with barely any hair on his head and a no nonsense straightforward manner.

Homan strikes me as the type of person who grew up with a strong male role model whose steps he aspired to follow. This turns out to be true as Homan’s father was a decorated World War II vet who returned from the war in the Pacific to become a local cop, and then a magistrate. Homan grew up with a strong Catholic background, likewise, my cop friend is a deeply religious Christian.

Going back to my friend: in my opinion, he is a little too trusting of authority figures. He believes that most politicians are actually trying to do the right thing. Truth, Justice and the American Way, or, something like that.

However, I am deeply more cynical. The friend has met Texas Governor Abbott while on a security detail and believes Abbott is trying to do the right thing with Operation Lone Star which tries to crack down on illegal immigration. People like Tucker Carlson do not believe Abbott has done nearly enough to crack down on the border.

Maybe my friend is correct, and Abbott means well, but has his hands tied by the courts because immigration is interpreted as being a federal matter. However, my friend also believes that Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar also means well. Now there, I have a problem. Currently, Henry Cuellar has a “D” rating from NumbersUSA.

Cuellar has often talked a good game about wanting border security while routinely voting against any measures that would truly secure the border.

His rating on “Strengthen Border Security” is F Minus.

In a somewhat similar vein, I watched Tucker Carlson’s December 18 interview of Tom Homan.

In the interview, Homan says that Alejandro Mayorkas actually went on an ICE raid with Homan in New York City back during the Obama administration. Homan expressed almost disbelief that Mayorkas opened the border up after that. Homan actually says about Mayorkas during the interview, “Perhaps, he fooled me.” Actually, yes, Mr. Homan, Mayorkas definitely fooled you.

Judging by how my friend acts, he is trusting of authority figures to tell the truth. Homan took merely the fact that Mayorkas was willing to go on one single raid as proof that Mayorkas saw the need for immigration enforcement. Mayorkas did not, and Homan was fooled because he wanted to believe that anyone seeing the inner workings of immigration enforcement would want more of it.

A big part of Homan’s repertoire is the deaths of 19 illegal aliens in Victoria, Texas who had died of heat exhaustion in the back of a trailer being driven by Tyrone Williams. The messed up thing, Tyrone had turned off the air conditioning unit on the truck so that he wouldn’t arouse suspicion going through Border Patrol checkpoints. Tyrone could have turned it back on after going through the checkpoints, but he didn’t. That’s part of Homan’s shtick about defending borders saves lives. Open borders advocates would counter that if there had been no Border Patrol checkpoints, then those illegal aliens would likely still be alive. However, Homan is the type who sees the world in black and white, good and evil.

Another question I was asked is if Homan would have the guts to arrest mayors and governors refusing to help ICE track down illegal aliens. I think if given the opportunity, Homan likely would. However, he would have to have the backing of his boss and be willing to take a sizeable amount of political flak for doing so.

Therein lies the rub, I believe that Tom Homan is such a hardcore old school cop that he would be willing to do it. HOWEVER, I do not believe that Trump has the intestinal fortitude to go along with it. I’ve written about this previously, but I saw how Trump stabbed Jeff Sessions in the back over the Zero Tolerance policy. Sessions was always hardcore pro-immigration law enforcement: see 27 Times Jeff Sessions Fought for Americans Against DACA, Amnesty and Open Borders, Breitbart, September 5, 2017. When Sessions was still a senator, he was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump. Trump did give Sessions the Attorney General spot as a reward, but when the going got tough, the tough got up and went. Trump reversed Sessions’s Zero Tolerance policy where every adult was criminally prosecuted for crossing the border instead of giving the illegal aliens administrative punishment. (The Department of Homeland Security may arrest them, but it is the Department of Justice who handles criminal prosecutions, so, all the DHS cases get turned over to the DOJ for prosecution).

By law, you have to separate minors from adults when an adult gets charged with a crime. Tom Homan had a fiery exchange with AOC about child separation during a congressional hearing. Homan pointed out that if a drunk driver has his kid in the car when he is arrested, the underage child is not thrown in the cell with dear old dad.

The “Kids in Cages” propaganda worked the last time to portray immigration enforcement as a bunch of big meanies. They will try the same tactic again.

On the score of Trump, I do not trust him. Before retiring from the Border Patrol, I shared an office with another Agent who turned out to be a narcissist. I did not realize this beforehand. He pushed my buttons and drove me up the wall. It turns out, he was getting something called “narcissistic supply” off of me. When reading up on it, my father sent me a book titled Narcissism And Politics: Dreams of Glory by Jerrold Post.

Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barack Obama.… they were all narcissists. A psychiatrist told me that George H.W. Bush was a narcissist too, but that there was a debate in the community if the elder Bush was a benign narcissist, or, not. This type of person will turn every conversation around to be about themselves, but is otherwise harmless.

Narcissists love being the center of attention. They will often become the most outspoken on an issue, any issue. When the crowd cheers for their stance, they internalize it as the crowd cheering for them, not the issue. I believe Ann Coulter caught on to this when Trump was failing to deliver on the border wall. She lit a fire under his ample backside and the Trump administration did eventually take steps to build the wall. However, Trump refused to go after the Dreamers. He knew what a hot political potato that would be, AND, he actually bought into the idea that Dreamers are more American than the Americans. If you don’t believe me, watch Trump’s advisor Sam Nunberg being interviewed about it. Trump told Senator Diane Feinstein that he would be willing to do a clean DACA bill.

I don’t see Homan as anything close to a defender of white people. He’s an old school cop who believes in God and doing things the right way in that traditional “I don’t see race” way that so many Republicans hide behind. However, Homan does believe in enforcing the law.

Trump, on the other hand… As we’ve seen with DACA and now H1Bs, he was only out in front of immigration enforcement so long as he was in front of the MAGA crowd getting their adulation. Once the crowd was gone, he was getting played by the Democrats because he still needs to have someone’s adulation even in his private meetings.

Just like the CIA does psychological profiles of world leaders, I bet the Deep State has done a profile of Trump. A narcissist likes to surround themselves with famous and successful people, and the fact that people like Mark Zuckerberg are going to his inauguration despite not sharing his politics is telling. They will be trying to soften any hardline policies Trump has. Will they succeed?

White Papers is a donor-supported publication! Please Support our mission to take on more writers and policy experts:

Zelle: whitepapersinstitute@protonmail.com

Buy us a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wppi

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/wppi

Snail Mail: White Papers Policy, PO Box 192, Hancock, MD 21750