Vox: Did Trump’s deportation czar accept $50K in cash? The Tom Homan scandal, briefly explained.

Kevin R. Johnson

01 Oct 2025 — 1 min read

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

While we were on hiatus, an alleged scandal involving President Trump's Border Czar Tom Homan made headlines. Cameron Peters for Vox provides the basic details. The Trump administration ended a federal bribery investigation into Homan. "Last year, . . . `border czar' Tom Homan was reportedly recorded accepting $50,000 in cash from `businessmen' — undercover FBI agents — in exchange for promising to help secure government contracts, spurring a Justice Department investigation."

MSNBC provides the latest details on the Homan bribery sting and related developments.

Read AILA's Response to the DHS Open Letter to Immigration Attorneys

Last month, James Percival, DHS's General Counsel, wrote an open letter to AILA purporting to blame immigration attorneys for the asylum backlog and characterizing asylum applications as "meritless." AILA's Executive Director Benjamin Johnson's thoughtful response is available here. In it, he writes:

More Deportation Judges

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice announced another class of judges: 22 permanent and 4 temporary. The names and biographies of the new judges are available here.

There’s been an uptick in ICE arrests in the Bay Area, immigration attorneys warn

As election day nears, ICE operations appear to be on the rise. Several attorneys report that several ICE arrests across the Bay Area "reflect increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement." "Bay Area `rapid response' hotlines monitoring immigration arrests have seen an uptick in reports since this weekend, said

Seattle U Students Support Immigration Detainees Through Legal Aid and Advocacy

Read here about the good work of Seattle University law school students for immigrants

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Read AILA's Response to the DHS Open Letter to Immigration Attorneys

More Deportation Judges

There’s been an uptick in ICE arrests in the Bay Area, immigration attorneys warn

Seattle U Students Support Immigration Detainees Through Legal Aid and Advocacy