Homan Stumps for Georgia GOPers by Promoting ICE Brutality in Speech to Evangelicals

In Church, Merch, and State, Sarah Posner writes about the intersection of religion and politics in the United States. This column is part of Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan delivered a no-holds-barred defense of Trump’s mass deportation regime at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Victory Dinner in Duluth, Georgia, last week in an event that appeared designed to bolster the campaigns of two major Republican candidates running for U.S. Senate and governor in the state. 

Homan’s speech signaled that an unabashed defense of the administration’s immigration brutality is a key part of its midterm strategy to mobilize right-wing evangelical and Catholic voters to back Republicans. In a surprisingly profanity-laced speech that castigated critics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including Democrats and federal judges, Homan became another administration official to inject himself into midterms campaigning this cycle, this time to lend a Christian imprimatur to Trump’s racist and violent assault on immigrants.

“We got elections coming up,” Homan told the crowd. “You better get out there.” He warned that Democrats would try to reverse the “successes” achieved by ICE and Border Control, who he praised as “part of the finest 1% this country has.” Homan, a Catholic who, along with Vice President JD Vance, has attacked Pope Leo’s critiques of the Trump regime’s immigration crackdown, added, “God bless the men and women of the Border Control and God bless the men and women of ICE.” To critics on the right, who, Homan claimed, have complained that immigration authorities are insufficiently “serious” about mass deportations, he retorted, “you’re full of shit.” He blamed Democrats and “radical judges” for thwarting administration efforts, and pledged to continue to violate orders from these judges. 

“I’ve got news for them, we ain’t stopping anything,” he said.

The Duluth event, hosted by the state chapter of the national organization founded by longtime evangelical operative Ralph Reed, was intended to boost the fortunes of Georgia Republicans. That includes billionaire gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, running against former Atlanta Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Rep. Mike Collins, who is challenging incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) while dodging a stream of revelations about the far-right extremists associated with his campaign. But the militant speech delivered by the “border czar,” in a state that is not on the border, demonstrates that Christian right operatives may well believe that immigration is an issue that could jolt its voters to the polls across the country.

Evidence that Trump’s abysmal approval ratings are dragging down Republican House and Senate candidates is growing. Voters appear particularly outraged over the disastrous effects of his military and trade wars of choice on the economy and cost of living. There are signs that even white evangelicals, long his most devoted supporters, are questioning his once-vaunted economic stewardship. 

According to a Fox News poll released last week, 55% of white evangelicals disapprove of how he is handling inflation. This is well below the 74% of all respondents who disapprove, but finding a majority of white evangelicals who express discontent with Trump on any issue is a sign that his normally enthusiastic base could be experiencing a midterm malaise. Republicans could not afford to lose even a segment of this bloc renowned for its high midterm turnout rate. Immigration, though, could prove motivating in spite of economic woes. The Fox poll found 64% of white evangelicals approve of Trump’s performance on immigration, well higher than the general public, at 43%.

To the Faith and Freedom Coalition audience, Homan recycled long-debunked lies the administration has told to make it appear — to an audience of anti-abortion enthusiasts who like to think of themselves as defenders of children— that it cares about the welfare of immigrant children. Homan repeated the disingenuous claims that the Biden administration had “lost” 300,000 immigrant children, and asserted that, through its supposedly heroic efforts, the Trump administration has “found” 157,000 of them, thus saving them from sex trafficking. News outlets and fact checkers for years have shown that these children in reality were never “lost” by the Biden administration, or that variously evolving numbers of them have been  “found” by Trump officials. In short, these supposedly “lost” children are a function of what the American Immigration Council has explained are “paperwork gaps” in an “intricate web of government bureaucracy,” and that “a majority of the children may be residing in loving homes, attending school, and acclimating to their new surroundings after being reunited with family members in the United States.”

What is even more preposterously grotesque about these lies about rescuing these supposedly “lost” children is that Trump officials want to deport all “illegals,” including children, even into the situations, like sex trafficking, from which Homan claimed to be redeeming them. Homan, in Trump’s first term, was the “intellectual father” of the regime’s family separation policy. Currently, according to new reporting by The Guardian, Trump’s other anti-immigrant mastermind, Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, “is leading an unprecedented and intense White House drive across a host of government departments to accelerate the removal of undocumented immigrant children from the US, using tactics that critics say are cruel and racist and, in some cases, flout federal law.”

Yet the Faith and Freedom Coalition is trying to court Latino voters, launching a traveling townhall, El Foro Latino, in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. An online registration form advertises it as “an uncensored discussion on the issues that truly impact and concern America’s fastest growing minority and what Hispanic Leaders across America are doing about it.” The flyer urges people to “come together with a prayerful heart so that the Lord may take the helm of our cities, states, and nation as we seek and speak truth with grace for such a time as this.” 

But perhaps the “uncensored discussion” will be more dispiriting than Republicans imagine. Last week, Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) directly warned Trump in a campaign ad that many Hispanic voters feel “betrayed” by his immigration policies. On Face the Nation on Sunday, she placed blame on Trump’s advisors, but declined to specifically cite Homan as one of those who is, supposedly, leading the president down the wrong path on the matter.

To the Faith and Freedom Coalition audience in Georgia, Homan issued warnings about the consequences of Democratic victories, including the possibility of a Democratic president in 2028. He predicted, “they overturn Trump’s census rule,” referring to the administration’s proposal to change which noncitizens will be counted in the Census. Should Democrats thwart this effort, Homan added, “Millions of aliens in sanctuary cities next census, more seats in the House for the Dems. I truly believe this.” In the near term, though, Homan was unequivocal about his goal of carrying out mass deportations. 

“We’re going to get this shit done,” he said. “You got my word.”