Inside the push to cash in on Trump's deportation campaign
The first time a Pennsylvania consultant named Charles Sowell connected with border czar Tom Homan was when Sowell reached out on LinkedIn in 2021, looking for advice about border contracting work. Homan had finished a stint as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, capping a three-decade career in federal government. He and Sowell built a rapport, based partly on their shared criticisms of then-President Joe Biden’s border policies.
By 2023, the men had gone into business together. Sowell was paying Homan as a consultant to his boutique firm, SE&M Solutions, which advised companies — in some cases for a fee of $20,000 a month — seeking contracts from the agencies where Homan had once worked. In 2024, Sowell became chair of the board of Homan’s foundation, Border911, which championed tougher border security.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made it clear that if he won reelection he would appoint Homan to oversee the sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration that he’d promised his supporters, which would likely involve billions of dollars in new contracts for private companies. At the Republican National Convention speech in which Trump accepted his party’s nomination in July, he said Homan would have a role in launching “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”
“Put him in charge,” Trump said, “and just sit back and watch.”
After Trump won and formally announced Homan would be returning with him to the White House, Sowell kept Homan on his payroll until the end of the year. Once named as the border czar, Homan said he would recuse himself from contracting, saying he would have no “involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts.”
But several industry executives who spoke with ProPublica said at least half a dozen companies vying for a slice of the $45 billion Congress has allocated for immigration detention work had hired Sowell because he had led them to believe his connections to Homan would help their chances of winning government work.
Homan's business relationships are under greater scrutiny after MSNBC reported an FBI sting that allegedly caught him on tape accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover agents posing as would-be government contractors before he took the border czar post.
His relationship with Sowell raises fresh questions about the integrity of the billion-dollar contracting process for immigration enforcement, ethics experts say.
Just last month, Sowell and Homan’s senior adviser Mark Hall visited one of Sowell’s clients seeking to cash in on an unprecedented plan by the Trump administration to build temporary immigrant detention camps on military bases, sources told ProPublica. As recently as February, Hall too had been paid by Sowell’s firm, records show. At the same time, the extent of Homan’s recusal has been called into question: Records of internal meetings obtained by ProPublica showed that over the summer Homan was in conversation with industry executives about the government’s contracting plans.
ProPublica gleaned more details than previously reported by examining federal disclosure forms, government documents and internal communications from firms in the Homeland Security industry, and from interviews with Sowell and several current and former government officials, as well as executives at companies seeking contracts in the burgeoning detention sector. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because of their ongoing work in the sector.
Government officials in Homan’s position are required to steer clear of any activity that could impact their former business associates for a year after entering government. Discussing immigration-related contracts with industry players would represent a “clear-cut violation” of federal ethics regulations, said Don Fox, the former general counsel for the Office of Government Ethics, an independent agency in the executive branch.
“You shouldn’t be in those briefings,” Fox said. “You are either recused or you are not.”
It’s common for companies looking to land federal contracts to hire consultants and seek expertise of former government employees. Those relationships are subject to federal ethics rules designed to guard against conflicts of interest. The White House and DHS did not provide requested copies of Homan’s formal recusal documents, which might outline exactly what kinds of activities government lawyers told Homan should be off limits.
Homan and Hall did not respond to requests for comment. In an interview, Sowell said he and Homan no longer have a financial relationship. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Homan has “no involvement in the actual awarding of a government contract.”
In his role as border czar, Homan “occasionally meets with a variety of people to learn about new developments and capabilities to serve the needs of the American people,” she said.
Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert in government ethics, said, however, “It’s not just about tainted awards. If the industry believes the system is corrupt, then the public is harmed. And the damage has already been done.”
Growing Wealth
Homan spent more than 30 years in public service, eventually rising to become a senior figure at ICE, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, during the administration of President Barack Obama. He was acting ICE director during Trump’s first term until he left government seven years ago.
While out of public office, Homan was highly critical of Biden’s border policies and formed the nonprofit Border911 to “educate Americans on what it means to have a secure, well-managed border.”
Homan’s private-sector work before he returned to government transformed his finances. In 2017, he declared assets totaling a maximum of just $250,000 on his ethics disclosures following a career in federal service, a figure that excludes certain government retirement accounts.
By 2025, his net worth had grown to between $3 million to $9 million, the disclosure documents show. (The forms list assets in ranges, and a portion of his net worth may come from money he had saved in government retirement accounts.)
In his years out of government, Homan became a household name in conservative circles as a frequent contributor on Fox News. He started a consulting firm and was paid for public speaking engagements around the country, raising alarms about the record number of border crossings during the Biden administration. The dire situation at the border, he said, could require the intervention of the U.S. military and the hiring of private companies to carry out a mass deportation campaign. “We’re going to contract as much work out as we can, work that doesn’t require a badge and a gun,” Homan told Fox News in 2024.
After Trump made clear his intentions to tap Homan as border czar, Sowell reached out to government contracting experts, saying he was working with Homan’s Border911 Foundation to help streamline procurement for the incoming administration’s mass deportation policy, said two people who spoke with him.
Sowell, sources in the industry said, made it known he was bringing together a group of companies that could be in line for lucrative contracts building detention camps for the Trump administration.
In an interview with ProPublica in June, Sowell said when his clients wanted to understand DHS better, he would bring in Homan to get his perspective as a former senior ICE leader. Bloomberg recently reported about aspects of Homan’s business dealings with Sowell.
Hints of Homan’s financial relationship with Sowell can be found in Homan’s federally required financial disclosure forms, which contain limited information. The forms report that Sowell’s firm paid Homan some sum of money — more than $5,000 — sometime between 2023 and early 2025. They do not say how much or exactly when he was paid, but Sowell told ProPublica their financial relationship ended last November or December.
Separately, Hall disclosed he was paid $50,000 by Sowell for consulting in January and February before he entered government in February. Hall also was a part-time board member at the Border911 foundation from April 2024 to February, according to his LinkedIn page.
Sowell made public his affinity for Homan at an industry conference in April, where many major players were present: He spent $20,000 at a charity auction to purchase a commemorative quilt made from Border Patrol agent vests. It was signed by Homan.
Sowell did not name his clients, but ProPublica learned several are companies that build temporary shelters, staffing agencies that supply security guards and medical companies that provide health care services, though they did not have direct expertise in immigration detention. Sowell said he couldn’t comment on his conversations with Homan since Homan went back into government. “I don’t have a lot of opportunities to chat with him anymore, even as a friend,” he said.
“Tom is an exceptionally ethical person,” Sowell said in the June interview, adding that his and Homan’s work steered clear of any real or perceived conflicts of interest. “I’m exceptionally proud of this administration for not doing that type of ‘it’s who you know’ versus ‘what you can do’ type of contracting.”
Asked about additional details in this story before publication, Sowell declined to comment.
Sowell appears to still be in contact — at least to some extent — with the border czar’s office. Last month, he and Hall flew to visit the Houston offices of Industrial Tent Systems, a family-owned company that specializes in quickly building temporary structures. ProPublica learned that Industrial Tent Systems is one of Sowell’s clients. Hall was there that day to hear the company’s leaders pitch their plan to use their tents and services for immigration detention, even sampling some of the tacos they were hoping to serve detainees, according to two sources with knowledge of the meeting.
Industrial Tent Systems did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House said Hall has never been authorized by Homan to represent him.
“It is unusual,” said Gil Kerlikowske, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection who served as drug czar for Obama, when asked about the meeting. “As an adviser this would be totally inappropriate to meet with potential contractors.” Generally, he said, a top decision-maker would not meet with a potential contractor, who would typically have to go through “numerous hoops” to even request a meeting that may well be denied.
Another one of the companies seeking expertise from Sowell and Homan was USA Up Star, an Indiana-based company that specializes in building temporary facilities.
Homan and Sowell were both on the payroll of USA Up Star before Homan was named border czar, according to several industry sources with direct knowledge of the relationship and government documents.
Homan’s disclosures show only that USA Up Star paid him as a consultant sometime between 2023 and early 2025, but do not detail how much or when. During this time, a picture of Homan and the company’s owner and founder, Klay South, standing in front of a private jet was posted on social media. South said he had no comment.
Military Contracting
Sowell’s clients have been trying to navigate a byzantine but highly lucrative contracting landscape, as the Trump administration has pledged to arrest 3,000 immigrants a day and is seeking to double the number of detention beds.
Early this year, the Trump administration drew up plans to build a series of massive detention camps on military bases to hold immigrants as part of a deportation effort, the first of which was planned for Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
The administration came up with a novel way to fund that camp, drawing on a contracting process run by the U.S. military known as the WEXMAC (which stands for Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract). Homan spoke to companies in the industry about those plans.
Records obtained by ProPublica show a contracting officer at the Department of Defense, which the administration now calls the Department of War, saying in a meeting that Homan had been talking to companies about the WEXMAC. “Border czar has been briefed by industry,” the official informed his colleagues. ”Border czar is most likely going to say something to SECDEF,” the official continued, referring to Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth. Bloomberg also reported on the June meeting.
Inquiries into Homan’s previous work in the private sector and his business relationships are likely to ramp up following the reports of the $50,000 undercover sting. That federal investigation into Homan was launched after the subject of another inquiry — not Sowell — claimed the border czar was soliciting payments in exchange for the promise of future contracts should Trump return to power, a person familiar with the closed investigation said.
“This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a joint statement. “They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed.”
The White House press secretary denied that Homan received the money, and Homan has said he has done nothing illegal. He has not been charged with any offense, and neither Hall nor Sowell has been accused of wrongdoing.
Democratic lawmakers are seeking audio and video evidence from the closed FBI case and have also raised questions about Homan’s financial ties to The Geo Group, a private prison firm he previously consulted for that has won lucrative contracts in recent months. The Geo Group did not reply to a request for comment.
Tens of billions of dollars of additional funding for immigration enforcement have yet to be spent. The detention camp contract at Fort Bliss, which could eventually hold 5,000 people, was awarded to a consortium of firms led by a company on the military contracting list for over $1 billion. It is the first of several such facilities planned in coming years.
A number of Sowell’s clients — including Industrial Tent Systems and USA Up Star — were among the close to 60 companies recently added to the WEXMAC. That makes them eligible to bid on those future immigration detention camp contracts.
Kirsten Berg and Al Shaw contributed research. Joel Jacobs contributed data analysis.