A border‑security consultant kept Tom Homan on payroll and marketed his proximity to the incoming border czar to firms chasing a reported $45 billion in detention and deportation work. MSNBC reported an FBI sting allegedly caught Homan taking $50,000 in cash pre‑appointment, and internal records show he met industry executives despite promising a recusal. The case shows how consultancies and foundations can turn anticipated government roles into pay‑to‑play pipelines for federal procurement.
— It spotlights a conflict‑of‑interest pathway that can corrupt immigration policy and undermine trust in large federal contracting beyond this one case.
2025.12.03
42% relevant
Both pieces document how migration policy and enforcement create monetizable rent‑seeking and corruption pathways: Rufo’s Somali fraud story alleges organized monetization of welfare flows and transnational diversion, while the existing idea details consultants and insiders monetizing access to deportation contracting — together they map a broader pattern of private actors extracting value from migration governance.
Tyler Cowen
2025.12.03
57% relevant
The deportation‑contracts item documents a pay‑for‑access channel; Wei & Zhou’s paper documents a different but related channel — leadership enabling trading in donor/home‑state firms and trading ahead of regulatory actions — showing access monetization is a cross‑sector pattern.
Juan David Rojas
2025.12.02
62% relevant
Both stories document how proximity to U.S. policy‑makers and promises of official favors create pay‑for‑play dynamics that reshape immigration/criminal‑justice outcomes; here, Trump’s pledge to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández (a convicted trafficker) in exchange for political alignment mirrors the earlier pattern of consultants monetizing access to enforcement and deportation markets.
Tony Schick
2025.12.02
45% relevant
While that prior item focused on pay‑to‑play procurement pathways, the ProPublica story complements it by showing how proximity to enforcement (here via conditional grant strings and prosecutorial posture) is being weaponized and monetized across the ecosystem: industry, politics, and administration converge to make immigration enforcement a locus of contracting and leverage.
Halina Bennet
2025.12.01
45% relevant
The Minnesota scheme highlights another mode by which private actors monetize proximity to public programs; like the deportation‑contracts story, it points to pathways where private profit and access to public spending produce corruption risks and procurement vulnerabilities.
by Avi Asher-Schapiro, Jeff Ernsthausen and Mica Rosenberg
2025.10.01
100% relevant
Sowell’s SE&M paying Homan; $20k/month advisory fees; FBI’s alleged $50,000 cash sting; Homan’s meetings with vendors about contracting plans; visit with Sowell’s client about detention camps on military bases.