secure borders – White House border czar Tom Homan lashed out at critics of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, describing horrific scenes from his career in border enforcement—including migrants he said were “baked to death” in a tractor-trailer—and arguing that stri
Tom Homan didn’t ease into it. He opened his remarks with anger.
“I want to talk about why I’m pissed off this morning. ” the White House border czar told the crowd at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference in Washington. D.C. Friday. arguing that media coverage has distorted President Donald Trump’s immigration policies as cruel or inhumane.
“There’s nothing further from the truth,” Homan said.
In place of that portrayal. Homan laid out a different version of what he called the real danger at the border: not enforcement. but the lack of it. He said critics have the story backwards. arguing that lax border enforcement creates conditions where migrants can be exploited. assaulted. or killed by smugglers and cartel networks.
“What President Trump is doing is saving lives,” Homan told attendees.
He then turned to graphic accounts from decades in border enforcement, using them as his evidence. At the Washington Hilton Friday morning, Homan said he had stood in the back of a tractor-trailer where, he claimed, 19 dead people were on the floor.
“I’ve stood in the back of a tractor-trailer with 19 dead people at my feet,” he told the crowd, saying the victims included a young boy.
Homan said the bodies were found in their underwear while the people were trying to escape extreme heat in the back of the truck. “They all baked to death,” he said, adding that he remembered the victims “trying to get some relief from the 170 degree heat in the back of a steel truck with no air.”
“Think of the way these people died,” he said.
He also described what he said were personal conversations with young girls who had been raped during the journey toward the U.S. border.
“I’ve gotten on my knees to talk to little girls as young as 9 that were raped multiple times by members of a cartel,” Homan told the crowd.
“That’s what happens when you have an unsecured border,” he added. “Well, guess what? There’s no little 9-year-old girl right now that everybody’s getting on their knees and talking to. President Trump has closed the border down.”
Throughout his remarks. Homan repeatedly defended Trump personally and politically. saying the president has delivered “the most secure border in the history of this nation.” He argued that the administration’s immigration crackdown is meant to stop more deaths. trafficking. and cartel exploitation—framing the effort as both security policy and moral necessity.
“Secure borders save lives,” Homan said near the end of his remarks. “Secure borders protect our national security. No one’s done it better than President Trump. And we ain’t finished yet.”
The speech landed as the Trump administration continues to face criticism from Democrats and immigrant-rights advocates over a mass deportation push. expanded immigration enforcement. and efforts to reverse Biden-era border policies. Homan’s response. at least in the way he delivered it Friday. was unambiguous: he cast the crackdown as a choice to reduce the incentives for migrants to place themselves in the hands of criminal cartels.
(For reference to the kinds of cases Homan pointed to in his remarks, the Texas Department of Public Safety said about 50 illegal immigrants were found in a junkyard tractor trailer in Webb County and turned over to Border Patrol. Five adult males who initially exited the trailer were apprehended.)
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