‘I Couldn’t Handle It At The Time’: Tom Homan Breaks Down Human Trafficking Cases That Hit Him Hardest

Border Czar Tom Homan recounted two human trafficking cases that haunted him in an interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan in an episode of “The Shawn Ryan Show” released Thursday.

President Donald Trump announced Homan, a former acting director of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would serve as “border czar” Nov. 11, 2024. An emotional Homan told Ryan about what children had gone through in those cases. (RELATED: ‘Ignoring The Law Altogether’: Tom Homan Swats Down Worries About ‘Due Process’ For Deported Gang Members)

“The thing that really, really affected me was two things: Number one, talking to a little girl about nine years old that was part of a small group who was raped multiple times by members of the criminal cartel nine years old,” Homan told Ryan. “Yeah, and let me tell you something as tough as guy you want to be when, when you sit down, get on your knees, you talk to this little girl and everything innocent, pure, even has been ripped from her, where you can tell that she has no faith in humanity.”

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“I mean, this little girl’s world was destroyed. She’s never gonna be the same,” Homan continued.

Homan made multiple media appearances where he lit into critics of Trump’s policies on border security and illegal immigration, often expressing anger about those issues. Homan told Ryan about one case in 2003 that particularly changed his outlook, starting with a phone call he received while giving a speech, telling him he was needed in Victoria, Texas.

“When I got there, the sheriff, and I think it was a Texas Ranger walking through the crime scene. ‘Okay, so, okay, it’s yours.’ So I remember walking up to there’s a tractor trailer, there was 19 people baked to death in back of that tractor trailer,” Homan said.

Homan told Ryan he was still in a suit, as he had flown straight down from Dallas to the scene.

“Right away, I see several bodies on the ground, because when those doors finally opened up, the people are such a rush to get air that they knocked some dead bodies out of the truck onto the ground. So I know some dead bodies [are] on the ground there,” Homan said. “Then I got to the back of tractor trailer, and I looked in the back of tractor trailer, I just see dead people, most of them in their underwear because they were trying to get some relief from the searing heat, and right away. I keyed on a little boy, and he was partially covered up by who later found out was his father, who was protecting him.”

“I keyed in on him, and he was wearing the same color underwear that my little boy had, same underwear. And I had a five-year-old son at the time, so right away, I keyed in on him. I, I, sorry,” Homan continued, growing emotional while recounting the case. “I took over the investigation… and the helicopter came to the crime scene. But when I was going, while I was processing the crime scene where the guy taking pictures, and I was telling him, take no, take all these pictures, what they needed, but I told them that we would, we would do the boy last, and mainly because I couldn’t handle it at the time.” (RELATED: Tom Homan Munches On Apple, Smirks As He Faces Protesters At State Capitol)

Homan explained to Ryan it was one reason he had fiery comments about some members of Congress who criticized Trump’s border security policy.

“So we process the crime scene, and I testified to this. I got angry during testimony where someone claimed I didn’t care about dying children. He should have wore my shoes. I’ve seen a lot of dying children, dead children in my career,” an emotional Homan said. “So when we got to the child, I knelt down beside him, I put my hand on him and I said a prayer, because I knew, based on the years I’ve done alien smuggling investigations, what a horrible, horrible death this child went through. He baked to death.”

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