Tom Homan, a Trump-era immigration official, urged Georgia faith voters to support aggressive deportation policies at a Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition event, using profane, combative language and urging turnout for Republican candidates. He praised ICE and border personnel, attacked Democrats and judges, and repeated disputed claims about “lost” and “found” immigrant children. The speech highlights efforts by the Christian right to make immigration a central turnout issue even as some conservative voters express economic concerns. Observers point to Homan’s role in past family-separation policies and reporting that other White House advisers are pushing intensified removal efforts for undocumented children.
Tom Homan Urges Georgia Evangelicals to Back ICE and Large-Scale Deportations at Faith Event
Tom Homan, who has styled himself as President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” delivered an uncompromising defense of the administration’s hard-line immigration agenda at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition Victory Dinner in Duluth, Georgia.
Speaking to a crowd of conservative evangelicals and Catholics, Homan praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border-enforcement personnel as among the nation’s finest, attacked Democrats and federal judges who challenge enforcement actions, and used profanity in rejecting criticism from the right about the pace of deportations. He repeatedly urged attendees to vote, tying the administration’s immigration objectives to the upcoming midterm contests in the state.
“We got elections coming up. You better get out there,” Homan told the audience, adding, “I’ve got news for them, we ain’t stopping anything.”
Homan framed his remarks as both a defense of agency actions and a political appeal: the event was intended to bolster Georgia Republican campaigns, including gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson and Rep. Mike Collins, who is challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff amid reporting about extremists linked to his campaign. Delivered in a state far from any international border, the speech signals that organizers on the Christian right view immigration as an issue capable of energizing voters nationwide.
The speech recycled disputed claims about immigrant children, including a long-debunked narrative that the Biden administration had “lost” 300,000 children while Trump officials had “found” 157,000. Fact-checkers and immigration experts say those numbers reflect complex bureaucratic paperwork gaps and reporting differences rather than a literal disappearance and rescue of children. The American Immigration Council has noted that many children may be living with relatives, attending school, and being reunited with family, rather than being the subject of trafficking rescues as Homan implied.
Observers also noted the irony that the same officials claiming to rescue children have promoted or implemented policies that separate families and pursue aggressive removals. Homan was a prominent architect of family-separation policies in the Trump administration. Reporting cited in the original coverage also highlights a separate White House push, associated with Stephen Miller, to accelerate removal efforts for undocumented children — an initiative critics describe as cruel and potentially unlawful.
The Faith and Freedom Coalition is simultaneously trying to court Latino voters via a traveling town-hall series called El Foro Latino, with stops in multiple battleground states. That outreach faces headwinds: several Republican operatives and lawmakers, including Rep. María Elvira Salazar in Florida, have warned the party that harsh immigration messages have alienated many Hispanic voters.
Homan warned the audience about the political risks of Democratic gains, including potential changes to the Census counting rules that he said would shift political power. He concluded with a blunt pledge to press forward on deportations, promising attendees, “We’re going to get this done. You got my word.”
Context
The event illustrates how the Trump administration and allied operatives are using faith-based forums to frame immigration as a moral as well as a political issue — mobilizing socially conservative Christians around enforcement priorities even as some of those voters express concerns about the economy. Polling cited in the coverage shows mixed signals for the coalition: while a majority of white evangelicals disapproved of President Trump’s handling of inflation, many still approve of his immigration record, making enforcement a potential turnout driver for the midterms.
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