TRANSCRIPT: Stories From The Border: Tom Homan on Dr. Phil Podcast

Is that a fair statement?

TOM HOMAN: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I grew up in a law enforcement family, and I started as a cop in upstate New York. I’ve been doing law enforcement ever since. Even being retired, I seem to be in trouble with law enforcement. But I’m coming back a second time from retirement for President Trump. Looking forward to it. Yeah. And we want to hopefully fix this problem.

DR. PHIL: How long did you think you were retired?

TOM HOMAN: Well, first, I was retired just for a couple hours. President Trump actually, the Secretary of Homeland Security actually called me at my retirement party.

DR. PHIL: You didn’t get through the party?

TOM HOMAN: It was at the end of the party. Me and my wife were shaking hands with people that came to the retirement ceremony, and I get a call from John Kelly, who was at that time Secretary of Homeland Security. He says, “Tom, I know this is bad timing, but the President wants you to stay and run the agency.” At the time, I was number three in the agency. I told him, “Well, it’s a bad time. I just retired.” He goes, “No, you didn’t. Paperwork’s on my desk. I haven’t signed it yet.” So that Monday morning, I’m back as the ICE director under President Trump.

DR. PHIL: So you got the weekend.

TOM HOMAN: I got the weekend off. That was about it.

Controversy and Policy Changes

DR. PHIL: There’s been so much controversy about all of this. And the first thing President Biden did when, well, not necessarily the first thing he did, but the first thing he did about the border when he took office was to reverse or cancel out some of the most important legislation that was in place. And I’ve had border guards tell me when I ask them what they needed, they said, “Just enforce the laws that are on the books.” He took off the books, the Hold in Mexico order. He just negated a lot of things that were in place that were working. Why do you think they took that approach? Was that just to get back at Trump, or was there something else behind it?

TOM HOMAN: I think, first of all, they hate Trump. And I think I was part of it. They took pleasure in undoing anything that had Trump’s name on it. Well, I think they wanted open borders. I mean, Joe Biden ran on open borders. And, you know, six months before the election, I said, “If Joe Biden becomes president, we lose the border.” Just because what he’s saying on the campaign trail, he wants to end ICE detention. He wants to re-imagine ICE, whatever the hell that means. He wants to give free health care to New Orleans. He wants to put a moratorium on deportations. He wants to have an amnesty. He raised his hand at that one debate, give free health care.

He said everything he could say to make the whole world want to flee and come to the greatest nation on earth. And so this is by design. I’ve said many times, this isn’t mismanagement. This isn’t incompetence. This is by design.

DR. PHIL: You’re going to have to educate me as to their logic or argument. And I know you don’t agree with it, but I know you’ve had to counter it. How do you have a country if you don’t have a border? If you have an open border, how do you have a country? How do you have a nation? How do you have a country if you don’t have a border?

TOM HOMAN: You don’t. I don’t think they care. I think they came in, they had the plan of opening the border up. And I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know the guy, what the reason, but I can guess what the reasons were. I think they perceive a future political benefit in the minds of people in the country. First of all, I think they think they’re going to be future democratic voters, so they control the government forever. But as I said earlier, he also, when he signed 94 executive orders abolishing everything we did, he also overturned the Trump census rule.

Trump said we weren’t counting illegal aliens in the census because seats in the House and budgets shouldn’t be based on illegal aliens. But Joe Biden overturned that, which means the millions of aliens he’s releasing into the country will be counted in the next census when they reproportionate seats in the House. Sanctuary cities run by Democrats, it means more seats in the House for Dems. It’s simple math. So I truly believe they sold this country’s security out for future political power.

DR. PHIL: Wow. You think it’s that simple? Let a bunch of illegal aliens in. Make it easy. Give them money. Give them benefits. They’ll be beholding to the Democrat party and therefore they’ll vote for us. So we continue to give them benefits and money. And so we bought voters.

TOM HOMAN: I truly believe that. I can’t think of another reason you would on secure border. Every time I’m up on the Hill or I talk to Democrats, we get into a discussion, argument. I always ask, and they never have an answer, I ask, give me a downside on a secure border. Give me a downside. Name one downside. Less illegal drug flow, less illegal immigration, less sex trafficking, cartels making less money, less people on terrorist watchlists sneak in. What is the downside on a secure border? There is no downside on a secure border. So they got to have a reason why they did it. And the only reason I can think of is they perceive a future political benefit.

[Video clip: TOM HOMAN: And let me explain to you why I’m sitting here so frustrated, because I’m the only one in this room who has wore a green uniform and abandoned that line. I’m the only one in this room who has found dead aliens on a trail that were abandoned by smugglers who just left them there because they weren’t worth any money anymore. I’m the only one in this room that stood in the back of a tractor trailer surrounded by 19 dead aliens, including five-year-old little boy that suffocated in death in his father’s arms. I was there.]

Plus the United Nations, they’re behind all of this. I mean, they’re funding a lot of this migration throughout the world. And I know the United Nations spent a lot of money down in Mexico and Central America, you know, bracing this whole crisis with money from the United Nations. That’s why I think when the president went to President Trump to get some power, we need to investigate some what role the United Nations played in this massive migration.

Cartels in Control of the Border

DR. PHIL: Yeah, there are people close to the situation. I’m not going to be specific about who has said what, but I’m going to say there are people close to the border situation that say the people that are truly in control of the border under the Biden administration are the cartels. Is that partially true? Completely true? Are they truly in control of the border?

TOM HOMAN: Oh, absolutely. Criminal cartels control the southern border. They decide what comes in, where it comes in, how it comes in. And that’s just not my opinion. You talk to any chief patrol agent on the southwest border, he’ll tell you. He no longer has operational control of the southern border. I mean, one chief patrol agent told me that I’ll protect him because they go after him under this administration.

DR. PHIL: That’s why I’m not making sure that I’m going to say anything about who.

TOM HOMAN: He actually used the word “broken arrow” to me. He said, “Tom, I’m broken arrow. I can’t contain what’s coming across. I’m lucky if I’m catching 10%.” He goes, “You know, they overwhelm the system with family groups and this humanitarian crisis. I have to take all my agents off the border and the cartels do what they want then because there’s nobody left on the border to control them.” He goes, “As a matter of fact, several times this past two years, several times, they took every single agent off the border in certain sectors. El Paso once took everybody off the border. RGV did it. Eagle Pass did it.” Every single agent was pulled off patrol to deal with this overcrowding because this administration, what they’re concerned with is the optics, right?

They didn’t want overcrowding. If there’s overcrowding, then we can’t keep saying this border’s secure. When they had those 15,000 Haitians under the bridge that one day and Fox drone caught that, that was a bad day for this administration. So they’ve only cared about the optics. So every time they got overcrowded, they bring everybody in the process released quickly. And when you do that, the criminal cartels have a few of that because they know they can cross the border with nobody in their way.

DR. PHIL: Well, they’ve described that situation to me where they’ve said, take a stretch of the border and they’ll bring a huge group of people crossing at A and a huge group of people crossing at Z and draw all the border agents to those two areas. And then they do a run right up the middle with their valuable cargo. That’s where they’ll bring their drugs. That’s where they’ll bring their trafficking. They come across completely unimpaired. They just walk right through then because all the agents are pulled to the two ends and they walk right up the middle. Nobody touches them. Nobody bothers them.

TOM HOMAN: And that’s why I say the criminal cartels have operational control of the border. They create gaps by doing this. And it’s just, it’s CBP useless because of the policy of this administration. The cartels know what they’re doing. That’s why, you know, they’re a multi-billion dollar business. So they control our southern border, but it’s not going to be for long.

DR. PHIL: Talk about their use of social media. Do you have a plan to shut that down, to control that in some way, because they’re using it to recruit American teenagers?

TOM HOMAN: Well, I was excited to see Mark Zuckerberg down to Mar-a-Lago. Maybe that discussion needs to start because you’re right, and they’re using social media. They’ve been using it at least these four years. They’ve probably used it before. I’m not a social media guy, but when I saw Mark Zuckerberg going to Mar-a-Lago, I was hoping they’re going to have that discussion.

I’ve had that discussion with the president that we need to do something. Look, I’ve been, you know, I know a lot of people are locked out of social media for making comments, whether it’s about supporting Trump or, you know, a lot of people are locked out of social media for things they say. We can’t lock these cartels out of social media for criminal conspiracy of alien smuggling and drug smuggling. And a lot of these young kids, they don’t know anybody.

Recruiting Teenagers for Smuggling

TOM HOMAN: So they go down, they make a quick, you know, $3,000 by transporting this guy from here to here. But what they don’t know, and they may think it’s just that I’m helping this illegal alien for getting a better life. Well, you don’t know. Is he a public safety threat? You don’t know. Is he Karen Fan now? You don’t know. Is he an uninspected terrorist? You don’t know. So you don’t know who you’re transporting. Chances are you’re transporting someone very dangerous. So these young kids get, you know, tied up in this, make a quick buck, and they’re going to ruin their lives. Because alien smuggling is a felony. And I’ve seen a lot of young kids ruin their lives over this.

DR. PHIL: The Arizona Sheriff’s told me that they’re using this to recruit these teenagers, and they’ll tell some of them, “I’ll pay you X amount if you don’t go through a checkpoint, and I’ll pay you 2X if you do go through a checkpoint. And if they want to search, run.”

Because they’ll chase you for a while, and then they’ll break it off, and you’ll be fine because they want to pull all the guards onto the chase, because three cars back in the line is what they’re really wanting to get across the border. So they’ll put three or four illegal immigrants in a car, get the teenager to run, so they chase that, and three cars back, they’ve got several million dollars worth of drugs that they’re bringing across the border, and now they just flag them on through. So they have strategies for this. And they had one 16-year-old who ran and hit a woman, cut the car in half, killed her.

I interviewed her daughter, and she said it’s terrible, but these kids can make $4,000 or $5,000 by going and picking up these immigrants and bringing them across the border. It seems to me that this is really insidious that they’re now recruiting these kids who are naive and don’t see the downside. I mean, it’s very intoxicating to say, “Oh, I can go make $5,000, $4,000 in a couple hours.” It just seems to me to be something that we really should focus on.

TOM HOMAN: And that’s why the cartels are such a danger. People don’t understand. The cartels, they’re just not a bunch of dopers. They’re not a gang. They’re very sophisticated. They’re like a Fortune 500 company. Some of these cartels are now in over 40 countries around the globe. I mean, not only do they have military-grade weapons, they have the most sophisticated IT equipment. And like I said, they’ve learned social media. They’ve learned the game. And the problem is that U.S. law enforcement needs to keep up with them. They need to keep up with their tactics. They need to keep up with their technology. The Mexican military has tried to take them out, and cartels win every time.

And even when they do arrest a major player in the cartels, many times the Mexican government are forced to release them because they do so much damage to the city. That is a definition of terrorism. They’ve killed judges. They killed journalists. They killed politicians to keep control of that nation. And that’s why I think it’s going to take President Trump to take them out.

Taking Out the Cartels

DR. PHIL: Is it a military strategy to take them out? Do they get to their funds? How do you go about it?

TOM HOMAN: I think you do it all. I think you chase the money. You take their money, you take their power, because that’s how they buy off the military. That’s how they buy off law enforcement. That’s how they buy off politicians, get their money. But as far as dismantling the cartels and taking them out of business, it’s going to take the U.S. Mexico, I don’t know if they have the willpower to do it. If they do, they’ve failed for the last three decades. But I’m not missing words when I say a lot of the military and law enforcement and Mexican government are corrupt. That’s just a fact.

When we have vetted units, we work with HSI. We work very closely with Mexican authorities. We vet the people that we work with very thoroughly. But even the vetted units, we don’t tell them everything. That’s just too high of a risk for our agents. So a lot of corruption in Mexico, it’s going to take the U.S., it’s going to take our special ops, it’s going to take our intelligence specialty to find these people and destroy them. Hopefully, we can work with Mexico to do that. But I don’t see Mexico allowing it. And that’s something that President Trump’s going to have to work out with President Mexico. You think after so many politicians and Germans have been murdered in Mexico, they want to do something. But we’ll see.

Biggest Threat from Open Borders

DR. PHIL: Yeah. What is the biggest threat to us right now from what’s happened with this open border? Where do you think we’re most vulnerable in America?

TOM HOMAN: I think the terrorism aspect scares me the most. And, you know, I don’t have a lot of respect for Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, but he agrees with me that the southwest border is a huge terrorist vulnerability. He said he touched by numerous times, he sees more red flags now than ever before.

DR. PHIL: Well, let’s take a look at that, because we see here that 300 plus were stopped with names matching known suspected terrorists on the watch list, 183,055 with criminal charges pending, criminal convictions arrested by ICE and 178,508 with criminal charges pending and convictions that were removed by ICE.

So if that’s how many are being stopped and caught, you got to wonder how many got away. And that’s who’s in the country. Where are these people now?

TOM HOMAN: We have no idea. As far as the people that gotaways, there’s no footprint on these people, right? They weren’t fingerprinted. They weren’t vetted. There’s no release documents. So these are people who are going to have a hard time finding, but we’ll find them.

And look, you just released thousands of people from Afghanistan in prison. So the sole purpose in life is to destroy this nation. And, you know, back after 9-11, I was in DC and all these different programs he created to prevent another 9-11.

Let’s, you know, let’s make sure people can’t get a plane ticket to come to this country. Let’s make sure they can’t get a visa, a student or visitor, whatever, to come to this country and do us harm. So we created all these vetting processes. You have the no-fly list, you have the FBI screening database, you got the visa security program, which I used to run as the ICE director.

Anybody who wants a visa, they get through this vetting process. And if you’ve got some derogatory information, you’re not getting a visa to come to this country. We prevented thousands of people from getting a visa. All these programs work pretty good after 9-11. Plus we’ve got the DOD intelligence database. All these programs work pretty good for the last two decades after 9-11, but nowadays with open border where it is, what terrorist is going to put himself in a position to try to get a plane ticket or visa when he knows there’s some vetting procedures in place, regardless how bad they are, he knows there’s a vetting procedure in place, where he can simply get to Mexico, pay the cartels a little bit extra money and be a gotaway. And that scares the hell out of me.

DR. PHIL: You put a fine point on that before because, so people understand if they come across the border and they see a green uniform, that’s U.S. Brown is Texas, right? So if they see a green uniform and it’s U.S., then the policy is they process them, give them a date, turn them loose. And if somebody that can do that is hiding and avoiding even them, they’ve got something serious to hide. They don’t even want a superficial vetting. And there’s two million of those. Two million that we know of. That means we got two million that are very likely bad actors in this country.

Tracking Down Gotaways

DR. PHIL: How many of those do you feel like you guys know, generally speaking, where they are? I mean, are they clustered in Chicago? Are they in New York? Have they joined up with MS-13? When you go looking for them, do you have a place to start?

TOM HOMAN: For many, we do. Some, we don’t. It’s going to take some investigative, some processes. We have some, first of all, we’ve got some great partners in the public sector, but public sector has some great technology. You’re like, we’re cops, right? We’re not. The public sector has some really talented people who have a lot of sophisticated programs that we can find people. So we contract a lot of this work out. But that technology changes every day.

And they’re working on it right now. Matter of fact, I’ve been meeting with these technology companies the last couple of weeks, find out what’s new on the plate. What can you bring to the table? If I explain to them, this operation President Trump wants to do and we’re going to do is as successful as our targeting is when you find these people.

So I’ve been meeting with these tech companies last couple of weeks, find out what’s the latest and brightest technology available. So we’re already working on that plan. We’ll find many of them, but I’ll be honest, we’re not going to find all of them.

DR. PHIL: Is it a spatial recognition type stuff? Is it?

TOM HOMAN: Spatial recognition is just one of many, but there’s a lot of technology out there that amazes me about, you know, anybody who’s walking around the country, that’s a footprint of some kind, digital footprint. You know, whether it’s a mortgage, a car payment, you’re paying electric bill or you’re in your facial recognition, we’ll see that at the airport or a bus station. A lot of these cities have cameras everywhere. They’re like New York City. And so there’s a lot of technology where, you know, license plate readers, it’s just so much out there. Everybody has a footprint. It amazes me how much of a footprint I have.

One of these technology companies came back and said, “Okay, here’s what we know about you.” And it’s amazing the information they have. And so we’re going to use the finest technology in the world to find these people because it’s important. We need to find them.

And we’re hoping for help from the American people too. Once they realize we’re serious about this, I’m hoping that people pick the phone up and call ICE and say, “Well, there’s a guy next door. I think somebody needs to look at. I heard him, you know, bragging about this and bragging about that. Or I know for a fact he has, you know, 10 illegal aliens in his basement. He takes them to work every day. They’re on a landscaping crew, whatever.” I’m hoping people start calling ICE and reporting because we have millions of people in this country can be force multipliers for us if they just call us with information.

DR. PHIL: Yeah. A lot of eyes and ears if people know what to do. Will you have a citizen number for people to call? Are you going to put up that kind of thing?

TOM HOMAN: Yes, we will.

Executing Mass Deportation

DR. PHIL: Do you have enough people to execute on this mass deportation?

TOM HOMAN: We got as many people as we got, which what’s that mean? That means we’ll use everybody we got to do this job. I wish we had more. I hope Congress funds more deportation officers, more ICE agents. But until then, we got other agencies that can join the mission, whether it’s the Marshals Service or other people that come to once we secure the border and get the border locked down, we can even pour some border patrol agents into the Interior Enforcement Operation Plan.

DOD, I’m a big proponent of having DOD involved, not to do arrests, but to do jobs that doesn’t require a badge and a gun. So there’s a lot of border patrol agents and ICE agents that are doing administrative duties, such as infrastructure building, intelligence, transportation. Let’s contract that stuff out. Let’s get DOD to do a lot of that stuff. And that puts more badges and guns on the street.

So we’re going to do everything we can. Plus the 287G program. I got numerous sheriffs that reached out to me from throughout the country that want to be a part of the 287G program where we train them what to look for in the jails. And they’ll do the immigration work for us, and we’ll review it at the end. But they’re a force multiplier.

You know, Phil, I’ve gotten thousands. As a matter of fact, I had to shut my LinkedIn account down because I just couldn’t handle the traffic. There are thousands of retired soldiers, retired police officers, retired border patrol agents, retired ICE agents, retired law enforcement, just want to come and help.

And so I’m hoping we can create a program, a Rihardo and Newton program, through the government. So if you’re a retired border patrol agent and ICE agent and you want to come back to work, we’ll bring you back to Rihardo and Newton. You know how to speak Spanish. You know the Fourth Amendment. You know the immigration law. They’d be a great assistance. That’s one of the things I’m pushing for is a Rihardo and Newton program, bringing some retired folks that want to come back and help us.

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What do you say to these city leaders that say, A, they won’t help, B, they will resist your efforts?

TOM HOMAN: Well, first of all, I find it amazing that any elected mayor or governor will push back. The president’s been very clear. We’re going to concentrate on public safety threats. What mayor or governor does not want public safety threats taken out of their communities?

So again, help us and get out of the way. And I’ve been clear, these politicians need to read Title VIII United States Code 1324, Section 3. It says, if you knowingly conceal or harbor an illegal alien from an ICE officer, it is a felony. To impede a federal law enforcement officer is a felony. So don’t cross that line. We got a strong AG coming in, Pam Bondi, and we will present these prosecutions. So, you know, don’t test us. If you don’t want to help, stay out of the way.

But I would think we’d all be on the same page. Let me tell you something about sanctuary cities. Sanctuaries are sanctuaries for criminals only. You saw a guy said, “We want victims and witnesses of a crime to feel comfortable coming to the police. And so we don’t want to send a message we’re working with ICE.” That is crap. Victims and witnesses of a crime don’t want the bad guy released back in the community. That’s just common sense.

It puts the community at risk. And like I said before, if you force us into the community, we’re going to find a bad guy. There’s probably others we’re going to find, which means they’re going to be arrested too. So by them putting up roadblocks and being a sanctuary city, they’re going to get the exact result that they don’t want. More ICE officers in their neighborhoods.

DR. PHIL: It just seems crazy to me that if there’s a suspect and they’re in their jail, that they would open that jail and say, “Here you go, do what you’re going to do.” And it’s much safer. And why won’t you give us access to somebody you locked in a jail cell? Because obviously he’s a public safety threat. And when you’re done with them, let us have them.

TOM HOMAN: Because then we’re not only removing from the community, we’re removing from the country so he can’t re-offend. Look at recidivism rates, for God’s sake. They’re going to release him back in the immigrant community. He’s likely to re-offend in the immigrant community. How is that protecting the immigrant community? MS-13 thrives on citizens from El Salvador. Let us protect American citizens. Let us protect the immigrant community. Give us the bad guy.

Chinese Immigrants and National Security

DR. PHIL: I need to ask you about the Chinese immigrants that have crossed the border, because that number has gone way up. And I’ve talked to people that are concerned that we have vulnerability to our energy grid in the United States. This is a map showing where Chinese have purchased farmland in the United States in pretty massive quantities. Those purchases are strategically around military bases. And so we’ve got, in 23, I think, what, 30,000 Chinese immigrants across the border. How do we protect against them organizing in some way and taking down the energy grid in this country in a coordinated fashion?

TOM HOMAN: You put a strong president in the Oval Office. That’ll happen January 20th. This administration won’t do it. And look, this is a huge national security threat to us. And it’s closer to 60,000 Chinese under the Biden administration. 60,000 Chinese males, mostly military age, do not leave China without the coordination and approval of the Chinese government. That just don’t happen.

So this is a coordinated national security vulnerability that the Chinese government has involved in. That’s my true belief. And it’s a huge national security vulnerability. This administration did nothing to China about creating the precursors that make the fentanyl to sell the cartels. Nothing. They’ve done nothing about Mexican cartels. President Trump is committed to take out the Mexican cartels because they’ve killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in this world combined.

NGOs Involvement

DR. PHIL: Talk about the NGOs that are involved in all of this.

TOM HOMAN: The NGOs need to be investigated and they will be investigated. I know the NGOs have been given billions of dollars to assist in this mass migration. Now, they say they’re performing a service that’s unnecessary because while they’re putting people in a hotel room in New York City for 500 bucks a night, there are thousands of empty ice beds and $127 a night. And those ice beds come with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, three squares a day.

And we’re going to put them in a hotel, 500 bucks a night. The reason this administration is doing that is for one reason. Because if you’re an ice detention facility, the immigration court prioritizes those in detention. They’ll get a hearing in 30 to 40 days, which means they’ll be removed in 30 to 40 days because most of them don’t qualify.

However, if you’re released, you’re on what we call a non-detained docket. Immigration court doesn’t prioritize that. So now you’re waiting three, five, seven years. And in that three, five, seven years, you probably got one or two USC kids. You probably have some other equities. So when it does get time to remove you, when I was ICE director, I got a call from Republican senators. “Why’d you remove that guy? He has two U.S. citizen kids.” Well, he didn’t have two U.S. citizen kids when he entered illegally. So he chose to have two U.S. citizen kids knowing he’s in the country illegally. Now he’s got oral removal.

So that means he gets amnesty. That means he’s immune from the court order, because if that’s a fact, then shut down the immigration court. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Shut down, take the board, throw off the board. There’s no consequences. Now, if you choose to have an American job while you’re in the country illegally, shame on you. You put yourself in that position. And I removed them, despite some yelling even from Republican senators. The law is the law, and we’re not going to bend it.

DR. PHIL: So how long are we keeping these people if they go into some of these hotels for 500 bucks a night? I’ve stayed at the Motel 6 before, which wasn’t six bucks, even though they called it the Motel 6, but it was pretty cheap when I was in college. But 500 bucks a night is considered a pretty luxury hotel, right? Even in New York.

TOM HOMAN: I have never stayed in a hotel for 500 bucks. You gave me a pretty nice hotel room here, and I think it’s around 300. But I’ve never stayed in a 500, nor would I. I’m a Hampton Inn type guy. Give me a Hampton Inn. You know, as long as you’ve got a clean bed and a clean shower, I’m good. Yeah?

DR. PHIL: You go down and fix your own breakfast?

TOM HOMAN: You know what? When I was the ICE director, I was actually the secretary — Secretary Kelly called me up one day and said, “Congratulations, you’re the cheapest bed in the United States government.” He goes, “We pulled your travel. You always stay at Hampton Inns. You always take coach. And you turn down free upgrades on airplanes.” Why would you turn down a free first class ticket and upgrade? I said, “It’s because the taxpayers don’t know it’s a free upgrade. They see me sitting in that first class seat. They think, OK, home is flying around our tax dollar in first class.”

So I turned down every upgrade. And I never took a detail with me. Every security guy, every ICE director would take five or six people in the security detail and his chief of staff. I figure wherever I’m going, there’s a nice office there. I got plenty of armed officers there. They’ll take care of me there. And if I need chief of staff, I’ll grab some from that office. So actually, I called the cheapest bed in Washington, D.C. I’m not saying I’m cheap, but I’m not going to spend the taxpayers’ money like it’s my money. It’s not.

DR. PHIL: Yeah, I get it. I get it. But now, how long are we keeping these people in these hotels? What’s the average length to stay?

TOM HOMAN: So it’s been there for years. I mean, I don’t know. The NGOs are getting it. As long as we keep funding these NGOs, they’re going to keep paying for it. But I was in New York City. What really got me upset, I was in New York City a few weeks ago, Columbus Day. The day before Columbus Day, I arrived in New York City to do some shows. And I’m trying to get to the Fox studio from my hotel. And I got across. I forget what street it was. And there’s a parade going on the day before Columbus Day. And it was migrant groups.

I saw Honduran flag came down and they were singing songs and marching. Then El Salvadorian flag comes down. The Mexican flag comes down. And I was sitting there because you can’t cross the street. The NYPD would stop the parade once in a while and open up a path across. And I have all these, everything I saw there, I never saw American flag. I stood there for 40 minutes. There was no American flag. But I saw all these other foreign national flags. That’s fine. But I’ve never seen people who claim persecution carrying the flag of the persecutors. It kind of amazed me.

And the next day, we had a Columbus parade. But what I saw in New York City all these people are staying in hotels. I walked by the Roosevelt Hotel, which used to be a beautiful hotel. I guarantee it’s not anymore. And there’s been whistleblowers out of hotels saying there’s been defecation on the floors. There’s been food thrown. There’s been sexual assaults. And it’s just amazing.

And I think just recently, the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, has reached out to me. And I’m planning on meeting with him. I think he wants some help. I’m willing to give him help to make that city safe again.

DR. PHIL: Well, you know, that’s $15,000 a month to put somebody in a hotel, and they could be in an ICE bed for 120. The average ICE bed is 127 when I left. And like I say, an ICE bed, you get all these other things. You get food. There’s a doctor in these facilities, medical care, attorney privilege rooms, VTC. You can talk to your VTC. They talk to you. I mean, these facilities, I think most American taxpayers would be pretty upset at what I spend in these facilities on our detention standards. You have the highest detention standards in the industry.

DR. PHIL: And there are empty ICE beds.

TOM HOMAN: Thousands of them. Thousands. Already paid for. The reason they’re not putting them in ICE beds is because they know they’ll get a quick hearing. If they release them, chances are they’re never going home because they’re hoping in five, six years, there’s a Democratic administration, they’ll come up with an amnesty program, and congratulations. You all get to stay.

DR. PHIL: Yeah, people need to hear this conversation. I mean, they, this is just a very, there’s not a lot of details. It’s just bottom line what’s happening. People need to understand there are thousands of ICE beds available, and they’re passing them up and putting people in something that costs three, four times more for much longer.

TOM HOMAN: This isn’t by design. They purposely overwhelmed the system. We’re now some hearings about five, seven years in New York City. They push it out because in that five to seven years, you can have U.S. citizen kids. You can build equities. And they’re hoping that administration will come along, maybe a Democratic administration that’s going to come up with an amnesty program. They’re pushing things out. They overwhelmed the system on purpose. I mean, ICE criminal docket’s over a million people. And I think the overall docket’s over four million already on the docket. And immigration judges are already overwhelmed. Well, their work just got a hundred times worse. There are actually hearings that won’t happen for seven years, and they did this on purpose.

Trump vs. Biden Administration Comparison

DR. PHIL: Let’s take a look at Trump versus Biden administration. The Trump administration, 2017 to 2020, encounters 2,088,618. Encounters the Biden administration, 10,825,387, and then 2 million gotaways. So that’s a huge difference in the number of people penetrating the border. And then repatriations, 1.6 under the Trump administration, and then 4.4 under the Biden administration, which is reflective of the number of people coming across. Trump administration, 2,000 pounds of fentanyl seizure, and Biden administration, 14,000 pounds. That’s enough to kill every American walking, because it doesn’t take much. So that tells you how much is coming across, because DEA tells me they assume they’re seizing about, what, 10%?

TOM HOMAN: No more than 10%. It’s not a coincidence in four years of an unsecured border, we have historic overdose deaths on fentanyl. It’s coming across between the port of entries. But the border patrol’s overwhelmed. And that’s what people need to understand.

They want to talk about innocent and legal immigration, and they’re coming for a better life. I get that. But you need to understand, when you overwhelm the system like they’ve done the last four years, most of the border patrols no longer patrol. They’re making sandwiches, changing diapers, they’re making hospital runs, they’re dealing with humanitarian crisis.

So when you pull 70% of agents all through national security duty, that’s when they move the fentanyl in to kill Americans. That’s when they move the sex trafficking, the 600% increase in sex trafficking, that’s when the bad people come. And look, 2 million people paid more to get away. Why did 2 million people pay more to get away?

Because they could have paid less, get to the border, cartel job’s done, turn yourself into green uniform, get processed, get released within 24 hours, get a free airline ticket to the city of your choice, get a free hotel room, get three meals a day, get free medical care, and in 90, 120 days, get work authorization, which was the very reason you came here. Why did 2 million people pay more to get away? Because they didn’t want to be vetted, they didn’t want to be fingerprinted. That just scared the hell out of everybody.

Rush to Enter Before Trump Takes Office

DR. PHIL: Scares the hell out of me. How many of those came from a country of sponsored terror? If people know, and they do, that we’re, what, five, six, seven weeks away from President Trump being sworn in, you taking over the reins, is there a rush to get here? Do we have an influx of people headed this way to try to get here before that happens?

TOM HOMAN: Yes, the cartels are selling that right now. Get in the country before Trump gets in. But what they’re being smart about, rather than these big caravans, they’re breaking them up into smaller groups, so they’re not so noticeable. The President of Mexico says he’s going to break up the caravans. I believe when I see it. What they’re doing is breaking them up into smaller pieces to sneak across the border. And they’re still coming, though.

DR. PHIL: Oh, they’re still coming.

TOM HOMAN: There are thousands and thousands in towns across Mexico waiting to make that journey. They’re going to come. And look, they’re going to come when President Trump’s president, but the difference is, they’re not going to just talk about catch and release.

Timeline for Resolving the Issue

DR. PHIL: Is this something that you can do in four years? Is it something you can do in a year?

TOM HOMAN: No, this is a decade problem. But we’re going to do a lot. Look, we’ll secure the border, no doubt. But to remove all the illegals in this country? No, it’s a decade problem. And they create that on purpose, like I just said. And when a decade comes, we’ll probably have a Democrat administration at some time. I hope not. But if they do, they’ll come up with some nasty program. That’s why this operation is so important. We need to do as much as we can, as quick as we can, to take control. Because this, again, by design, they meant this to happen. And it’s going to be hard to fix it. It’s a decade fix.

Put the border? A few months, we’ll have that locked down. We know what to do. President Trump’s a strong president. He would demand action from Central American countries and demand action from Mexico. He’s already doing it with Canada and Mexico. And I’m sure he’s having conversations. The president of Panama just reached out to me. He wants me to be the president. He’s serious about shutting down the Panama Gap. And he will do it. But like he said, the Biden administration said they’re going to do it. They never gave him the money to do it.

So we’ll hook him up with President Trump and we’ll finally shut down the Darien Gap and let them shut it down with our assistance. But he’s serious about it. You got the president of El Salvador who’s locking up hundreds of thousands of gang members in this country. He’ll help us. And he’s taking a strong stance. He wants to work with the president. So a lot of leaders around the world are seeing the light and they want to work with President Trump.

Foreign Countries Refusing to Take Back Criminals

DR. PHIL: Did countries such as Venezuela take people out of prison and send them up here and in fact refuse to take them back?

TOM HOMAN: Yes. And Venezuela to this day, they’re pushing back on taking return of those criminals. So President Trump already realizes he has to give a mandate to Venezuela saying you will take these people back or you’ll face consequences.

Gang Problems in Communities

DR. PHIL: We’re talking about some gangs here. This is from Aurora. I’ve had the Aurora people here. You’ve been in this building. You’ve been to this building. You’ve talked to this resident. The mayor had a statement that contradicted itself within the statement that said there wasn’t a problem here. We arrested six people there. Well, which was it? Was there a gang problem in this building?

TOM HOMAN: Absolutely. There’s a gang problem in that building. The entire neighborhood is a gang problem.

DR. PHIL: Yeah.

TOM HOMAN: I was there. For the communities at great risk. But now they got a problem January 20th because my gang is bigger than their gang.

First Days in Office

DR. PHIL: What happens January 21st? Where do you start?

TOM HOMAN: Well, there’s three rails. We’ll start the first day. Number one, we’re going to secure the border. Number two, we’re going to run the deportation operation. And number three, I’ll look for these 300,000 kids. We’ll find them too.

President Trump’s been clear. We’re going to prioritize public safety threats and national security threats first because they pose the most danger to this nation. So day one, we’re going to be looking for these public safety threats, arresting them, detaining them, and deporting them. And if these sanctuary city mayors don’t want to help, they get the hell out of the way because we’re coming. We’re doing it.

Flipping the Script on Critics

DR. PHIL: You know, a lot of people on the left are saying you are a cold-blooded, uncaring hard-ass.

TOM HOMAN: I don’t care.

DR. PHIL: And you’re saying just the opposite, that they’re encouraging people to put themselves in harm’s way, to subject themselves to abuse, torture, rape, and death. And it’s them that are uncaring and allowing these people to be tortured and put in harm’s way. You’re flipping the script on them from what I hear you saying.

TOM HOMAN: Absolutely. And I got data to back it up. You compare the sex trafficking under Trump compared to Biden, up 600%. Compare the overdose tests of fentanyl comes across an open border. Compare Biden to Trump. Look at the no suspected terrorists. Under Trump, 13, 14, four years, they had over 300. They had more people on the terrorist watch list arrested last month than Trump had in four years. So the data proves it.

The number of migrants dying, we’re hitting the 4,000 mark under President Biden. Historic number of migrants have died across that border. So they can look at the data themselves and see the difference between the two administrations. President Trump’s policy is stabilized by the thousands. Biden’s killing Americans at record numbers with fentanyl overdoses, and they’re killing migrants at record numbers. The facts speak for themselves.

Lack of Media Coverage

DR. PHIL: Well, we’re talking about 100,000, and I call them poisonings with this fentanyl because it is poisonings. But if you had any other way that people were being killed at the rate that they’re dying from fentanyl, if it was airline crashes or whatever, that’s 1,900 people a week that are dying from fentanyl poisoning. Can you imagine if 1,900 people a week were dying in airline crashes?

Oh, my God, people would be pulling their hair out. They’d be running up and down the street. What in the world is going on? But we have people dying of these fentanyl poisonings at 100,000, and it seems like people don’t react to it the way they would if it was airline crashes or trains crashing or subways.

TOM HOMAN: We have a 9-11 every week.

DR. PHIL: Yeah.

TOM HOMAN: About 300 a day, 2,100. That’s in the ballpark of a 9-11 every week. And again, the media is not talking about it. Thank God you’re talking about it. I’ve seen you do a lot of shows on it. Thank you for that.

But Fox is talking about it. Maybe Newsmax is doing some of it. But other media? I don’t hear anything from NBC, ABC, any of these CNN people. They’re not talking about it. Why? Because it’s an embarrassment to the administration, so they’ll cover it up. But again, like I said earlier, it shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

We’re losing an entire generation over this. It’s the number one killer of people between the ages of 18 and 45. If this was COVID, they’d be coming up with some vaccine for it, right? Because it’s so, they’ve made this thing so political that it’s being hidden from the American people.

And I appreciate shows like yours that bring it to the attention of American people. And you’re right, they’re poisoning because most of these kids, they’re not drug addicts. They’re taking something they think is going to help them stay up to take a test next morning. You know, “I need to stay awake and study for this final.” They take something they don’t know is laced with fentanyl. It’s poisonings. And the Chinese government, this administration has done nothing about it, and they’ve done nothing to address the cartels in Mexico.

So thank God President Trump’s coming to office and he will hold China accountable. He will hold Mexico accountable, and he will hold the cartels accountable. He’s going to designate the terrorist organization, which is a huge step to attacking them, attacking their money, attacking them all over the world.

Homan’s Humanity and Caring

DR. PHIL: The thing that impacts me about you as much as anything, I think people respond to the fact that you’re very straightforward. You’re very outspoken about this. But the thing that impacts me really the most about you, I have to say, is your humanity. When I hear you talk about these people coming across the border illegally, it’s very clear to me that you care about the way in which they’re being victimized.

I don’t hear you talking about these people in an ugly way, like they’re some kind of evil people or second-class citizens in some way. I heard real pain in your voice when you were talking about the fact that they’re being starved, tortured, sexually assaulted, raped, drowning in the river. We talk about numbers, and numbers can take the humanity out of it because you’re talking about saving lives. It’s important to realize they’re being victimized in getting here. They’re being victimized by these cartels.

Let’s take a look at some video of a two-year-old migrant girl recently found alone at the Texas border. Now, the girl, a Salvadorian, was among 200 migrants with 60 unaccompanied minors.

[Video clip]

DR. PHIL: This is a two-year-old child that shows up with a Post-it note. How did she get there?

TOM HOMAN: Obviously, her parents played the criminal cartel, have her slaughtered. Thank God she’s alive because too many of these young people perished. Hopefully, she wasn’t sexually assaulted by some animal in the cartel because it happens all the time. But she’ll eventually be released. They’ll find her parents and deliver her to the parents.

What I want to happen, when the parents come forward, we’ll process them too. And when that little girl goes to immigration court, the parents can be standing shoulder to shoulder with her because that’s parenting 101, in my opinion, and we’ll deport them all together as family. This should not happen. We got to put a stop to this. It’s just madness. I don’t know who put a two-year-old in the hands of a criminal cartel to be smuggled across the border. It’s so dangerous. The river alone, the river’s taken thousands of lives. The desert, thousands of lives. I don’t understand it, but we’re going to put an end to it.

DR. PHIL: It seemed to me that you genuinely care about those people.

TOM HOMAN: I care about people. And I’m not an anti-immigrant. I’m anti-illegal migration because I know what happens. And I’ve seen a lot of, as I said earlier in the show, I’ve talked to little girls young as nine. And as a father, you get on your knees, you look in their eyes and see the pain she went through. And everything innocent and pure. No child should go through that. And as a parent, that’d be devastating to me.

And I stood in back of a tractor trailer and 19 dead people at my feet, including a five-year-old boy who begged for his life. It came out through the investigation with the ones that survived. He begged his dad not let him die. He wanted to see his mommy again. And his dad can’t do anything. They’re locked in a steel truck. Think of the agony they went through, the pain they went through.

And I’ve seen so much of this and I’m tired of it. And I’ll be honest with you. At one point, I had to go get help because of the things I saw that I can’t forget. That’s why I’m so passionate about this. A secure border saves lives. I mean, I’m a tough guy, but I got a heart.

And like I said earlier, the men and women of the Border Patrol, they have hearts too. And it’s not about, I understand why people want to come to the greatest nation on earth. I get it. I get it that many are coming for a better life and they get a job to support their families. I get it. But they need to understand they’re going to be victimized through all this shit happening. And I hope I can say that on podcast, but I take this, I take this personal because I’ve seen it.

I take it personal because I am a parent. And when that five-year-old kid, when I lined up by him and said a prayer, it broke me inside for a while because I had a five-year-old son at the time. And I sit there on my knees and thinking how lucky I am and how lucky my son is that he’s not in that construction trailer because we’re not forcing this kind of plight because our country’s taking care of us. And there’s not a need for me to go to another country. And all this plays in. And I want this fixed. And a secure border saves lives.

President Trump had illuminate grace in the 45-year low. 90% less people are coming. That’s what lives that were saved. Even the wall. And people say the wall is Trump’s vanity wall. And what a waste of taxpayer money. No, the wall saves lives. You don’t understand because the women and children can’t get over the wall, which means the most vulnerable, the weak, the women and children are going to go to a place where there’s not a wall. And what’s waiting on the men and women wearing that green uniform whose first responsibility is to take care of their medical needs. A lot of them are in bad shape.

So yes, I love people. And I understand why they want to come to the greatest nation on earth. But so much bad happens, we have to stop it. And Congress needs to fix the system. But until then, we just can’t let this stuff continue to happen because people are dying. While you and I are talking right now, women are being sexually assaulted and being held down against their will and being sexually assaulted in ways you can’t imagine. A child will be sexually assaulted by members of these cartels. It happens every day. And a child, someone’s going to die tonight. Likely a woman or a child making that journey. If not on our border, in the Darien Gap or in Mexico, people die by the thousands every year trying to make that trek. And I just, I’ve had it. I’m done with it. And we need to secure the border and save lives.

Impact on Border Agents

DR. PHIL: Well, and as you said, it got to you and it’s gotten to a lot of the border agents down there because we’ve had a lot of suicide among those brave men and women down there because you can’t unsee, you can’t unhear, you can’t get that experience out of your mind and heart sometimes. And it just overwhelms their coping energies.

TOM HOMAN: And I, and me by telling the stories I tell, I hope people look, there’s a lot of people don’t like me. I get it. But if you saw what I saw, I think you’d understand me because even though I’m a tough guy, I love kids and kids are being abused every day on that border. And look, President Trump had it just locked down. He saved our lives. And I’m, I wake up every day pissed off that his administration came in and unsecured the most secure border in a lifetime.

Now the deaths are skyrocketing, sexual assaults are skyrocketing. And it’s just, we just, you know, I’m grateful that President Trump won this election. I’m grateful he called me back to action because we’re going to save lives and people are going to hate me all they want. I’m going to save lives.

DR. PHIL: Well, it’s going to be my honor to help you do it. And anything I can do, anything this platform can do to help you do it, I want you to know that we’re here for you. We want to get this story out. We want people to know it. We want to get the truth, the transparent truth out to what’s going on down there and the motives that you have to save lives. We think it’s important that people know the whole truth, the transparency. Tom, thank you for talking to me.

TOM HOMAN: And with your help, we’re going to be transparent. So I need people, shows like yours, you sir, to show the American people exactly what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And I think they’ll understand it. So I appreciate your help on that.

DR. PHIL: Well, you can count on us. We’re going to be there with you every step of the way. Thank you.

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