Border czar Tom Homan agrees to let cameras into Delaney Hall
EDIT: It was brought to my attention that Tom Homan testified on the ICE family separation policy, screaming at and degrading female members of Congress as his employees, after Yasmin Juarez testified at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s request on her infant’s in-custody death. The material point I was making off the cuff was that Homan’s demeanor at these hearings was not reflective of a particular governance theory, but rather it seemed to be his own personal nerves being worked at the thought of an immigrant’s despair. Perhaps the two solidified in my mind as occurring on the same day because it was that abhorrent. I apologize for the discrepancy nonetheless.
Every year, Antarctica plays a trick of scale. In summer it sits there, a modest continent of solid ice. Then winter comes and it doubles — the surrounding ocean freezes and the landmass throws itself outward for hundreds of miles. Emperor penguins arrive at the new perimeter and begin the long march inward to breed, the growing ice sheet quietly conveyor-belting the whole colony of giant flightless birds toward the interior.
To breed, they huddle. Thousands of them, fused into one shuffling super-organism, sharing body heat and shielding their chicks until it’s time to waddle back to open water. The Republican party, to a Democrat, is that huddle. Impenetrable. Immovable. Mostly a glob of immature blubber that couldn’t survive a night on its own. So you wait on the cold edge, patient, hoping the colony spits one of its own out into the wind to fend for itself.
Which brings us to Tom Homan.
Here’s what’s actually on the record, because it’s wild enough without embellishment. In September 2024 — before he was Trump’s border czar — undercover FBI agents reportedly recorded Homan accepting $50,000 in cash, handed over in a Cava takeout bag, in exchange for promises of future government contracts. The investigation was shelved, and the whole story reeks of cryptic propaganda.
That being said, Homan agrees cameras should be allowed into the Delaney Hall facility. He swears ICE offers presidential accommodations. Like staying at Mar-a-Lago, I’m sure. Detainees even get a legal education and ethnic food, he promises. Selective omission. The clip I watched didn’t even address Senator Andy Kim’s pepper spraying, or the abject violence happening constantly right outside the barbed gates. Cain was sincerely measured and authoritative. MAGA trusts and adores him, and his approach has a palpable effect on things. So that is refreshing.
The reality the cameras would catch is the part the clip skips. Around 300 detainees at Delaney Hall — the privately run GEO Group facility in Newark, the same GEO Group Homan’s bribery scandal touches — have been on a hunger and labor strike since May 23 over spoiled food (detainees allege worms), denied medical care, and overcrowding. On Memorial Day, ICE pepper-sprayed Senator Andy Kim as he physically put himself between agents and the crowd; Governor Mikie Sherrill was denied entry entirely. None of that, presumably, made the highlight reel.
There is no doubt Homan has tempered his MAGA rigor since being burned by his own. It’s hard to forget the level of rage he spewed as a Congressional witness, and all while sitting feet from a sobbing woman who had just described the in-custody death of her infant. It made no sense. And everyone saw his own conviction while attempting in vain to defend Alex Pretti’s killing. The country needs humane leaders, and Homan has nudged center a little over time.
So here’s the actual ask, stripped of penguins: let the cameras in. Open Delaney Hall. If conditions are as presidential as advertised, transparency costs nothing. The refusal is the answer.
We need to ensure we never become complacent with the level of violence occurring in our streets.
We need to see what’s going on inside.
