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Defend the Border and Save Lives
Former ICE Director Tom Homan has been at the forefront of the conservative fight to secure our borders and offers proof that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.
Illegal immigration is the most controversial and emotional issue this country faces today. President Trump was elected on his promise to fix illegal immigration and build a wall on our Southern border. Because he won on this issue, the Democrats refuse to work with him, and we experienced a government shutdown as a result of this divide. The Democrats have supported funding in the past and, in his State of the Union, the President said that he wants to unify and work together to resolve this and all the other challenges facing America. The Democrats sat on their hands. They won't budge. Clearly, as a party, they don't care about the facts, only about denying whatever success they can to this president.
Former ICE Director and Fox News contributor Tom Homan knows the facts. He's spent his life on the border, and knows that if we don't control illegal immigration now, this country will continue to suffer the consequences of crime, drugs and financial strain -- and it will get much much worse.
In CRISIS AT OUR BORDER, Homan shares what illegal immigration is really about. Illegal immigration should not be a partisan issue. Now is the time to fix this issue that has claimed so many victims and divided this country. We need to pull the curtain back and expose what truly happens and separate facts from fiction. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime, and the victims are the illegals and their innocent children as well as the Americans who suffer at the hand of the criminals who sneak into this country.
Illegal immigration is the most controversial and emotional issue this country faces today. President Trump was elected on his promise to fix illegal immigration and build a wall on our Southern border. Because he won on this issue, the Democrats refuse to work with him, and we experienced a government shutdown as a result of this divide. The Democrats have supported funding in the past and, in his State of the Union, the President said that he wants to unify and work together to resolve this and all the other challenges facing America. The Democrats sat on their hands. They won't budge. Clearly, as a party, they don't care about the facts, only about denying whatever success they can to this president.
Former ICE Director and Fox News contributor Tom Homan knows the facts. He's spent his life on the border, and knows that if we don't control illegal immigration now, this country will continue to suffer the consequences of crime, drugs and financial strain -- and it will get much much worse.
In CRISIS AT OUR BORDER, Homan shares what illegal immigration is really about. Illegal immigration should not be a partisan issue. Now is the time to fix this issue that has claimed so many victims and divided this country. We need to pull the curtain back and expose what truly happens and separate facts from fiction. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime, and the victims are the illegals and their innocent children as well as the Americans who suffer at the hand of the criminals who sneak into this country.
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 2020
24 people are currently reading
742 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 21, 2020
No BS in this book nothing but the whole truth here should be read buy all who loves our country
August 24, 2020
Tom claims to care about facts, but this book is full of opinions and assumptions. He defends his actions and opinions with false imagery of growing up in a town like The Andy Griffith Show's Mayberry, NC and that he's trying to preserve that fictitious innocence in America. There's missed irony in that Sheriff Andy Taylor didn't carry a firearm but instead earned the respect of his community, Tom instead has to rely on fear. Tom also makes claims about ICE preventing sexual abuse of undocumented immigrants, yet he fails to acknowledge the sexual abuse committed by ICE agents. He blames previous administrations for preventing him from doing his job while statistically ICE was more effective under those administrations. Tom is power hungry and this book is just him spewing fascist propaganda. The book opens with him rejecting being called a Nazi, yet the remainder of the book draws numerous parallels between his actions and those of the Nazi party. I would not recommend this book to anyone as the dangerous opinions outweigh the very few facts and true lived experiences told in the text.
June 16, 2020
This book, to me, was like an oddly shaped raisin cookie: it stands out from the rest of the batch, but not because it's any better.
"Defend the Border and Save Lives" had two points drawing me to it when I picked it up. The first, of course, was that it was written by Tom Homan, the former Director of ICE. With so many pundits, academics, politicians, and unqualified internet hack jobs like myself giving their opinions on illegal immigration, it's a rarity to have such an extensive contribution from someone so directly tied to the problems with our immigration enforcement. Tom Homan is arguably the person best equipped to respond directly to accusations against ICE, or to the nuanced difficulties of obeying the law. That quality alone might still be a draw for someone potentially wanting to read this book.
The second draw, for me, was the title. I typically approach immigration reform from a humanitarian point of view, and so the idea that defending the border would "Save lives!" should, in theory, be an argument directly addressing my own arguments. Convince me that your political policies will save lives overall, and I'm committed to shifting my position on it, if not outright supporting your views unequivocally.
But alas... I was disappointed in the quality of the arguments in this book. With all due respect to Mr. Homan, as he writes, he very much comes off as a person who has never read a book that argues against his positions. He spends almost no time discussing the objections that people have to the way ICE operates, and when he does mention them, it's always in an offhanded way, as if he's getting his ideas from protest signs, or man-on-the-street interviews. His typical response, rather than to address the criticisms in detail, is to simply shrug and be baffled at them (or instead, to respond to what he imagines people would say).
Those looking for a semi-autobiography will get some good use out of this book, as Mr. Homan passes on some stories from his career, like how he got the promotion to be ICE director, or the time when President Trump gave him and his officers a free meal. This isn't to say that all these stories are inconsequential to the topic of border security, however: the book opens with a particularly moving description of an apprehended human smuggling operation where many people had suffocated to death in the cramped hidden compartment of a transport. Mr. Homan has cited this same event in many interviews, and vividly points out the horror of what it would mean for these people (some of whom were children) to die in this way.
...but those looking for a meaningful reaction to these real problems at the border may be shocked at how Mr. Homan translates these experiences into a conviction of the Border Patrol's righteousness. In Mr. Homan's eyes, illegal immigration is basically the same thing as human smuggling, and after vividly recounting the horrors of what it must be life to crawl over the stinking bodies of your immigrant comrades, he then channels this emotion into a noble fight... for policies that would punish not just the smugglers, but the victims as well. Mr. Homan's heart goes out to his immigrant taxi driver who is waiting painfully to be joined in America by his family... but Mr. Homan then explicitly calls for more restrictions on family immigration. He explains how many immigrants are kidnapped and held for ransom by the drug cartels that traffic in them... and then claims that these immigrants have taken the easy way into the country, and thus they are justifably deported for any crime.
The book brings out the standard arguments, talking points, and policy suggestions that can be found in any restrictionist literature, and I'm sorry to say that Mr. Homan's experience as ICE Director end up having very little connection to them. He vouches for ICE and Border Patrol members as being very good people, ostensibly risking their lives for the good of their nation... but in the end, Mr. Homan never actually makes a convincing argument that supports his book title: that defending the border the way we currently do (which is, incidentally, NOT the job of the ICE) is saving lives, rather than ending them.
"Defend the Border and Save Lives" had two points drawing me to it when I picked it up. The first, of course, was that it was written by Tom Homan, the former Director of ICE. With so many pundits, academics, politicians, and unqualified internet hack jobs like myself giving their opinions on illegal immigration, it's a rarity to have such an extensive contribution from someone so directly tied to the problems with our immigration enforcement. Tom Homan is arguably the person best equipped to respond directly to accusations against ICE, or to the nuanced difficulties of obeying the law. That quality alone might still be a draw for someone potentially wanting to read this book.
The second draw, for me, was the title. I typically approach immigration reform from a humanitarian point of view, and so the idea that defending the border would "Save lives!" should, in theory, be an argument directly addressing my own arguments. Convince me that your political policies will save lives overall, and I'm committed to shifting my position on it, if not outright supporting your views unequivocally.
But alas... I was disappointed in the quality of the arguments in this book. With all due respect to Mr. Homan, as he writes, he very much comes off as a person who has never read a book that argues against his positions. He spends almost no time discussing the objections that people have to the way ICE operates, and when he does mention them, it's always in an offhanded way, as if he's getting his ideas from protest signs, or man-on-the-street interviews. His typical response, rather than to address the criticisms in detail, is to simply shrug and be baffled at them (or instead, to respond to what he imagines people would say).
Those looking for a semi-autobiography will get some good use out of this book, as Mr. Homan passes on some stories from his career, like how he got the promotion to be ICE director, or the time when President Trump gave him and his officers a free meal. This isn't to say that all these stories are inconsequential to the topic of border security, however: the book opens with a particularly moving description of an apprehended human smuggling operation where many people had suffocated to death in the cramped hidden compartment of a transport. Mr. Homan has cited this same event in many interviews, and vividly points out the horror of what it would mean for these people (some of whom were children) to die in this way.
...but those looking for a meaningful reaction to these real problems at the border may be shocked at how Mr. Homan translates these experiences into a conviction of the Border Patrol's righteousness. In Mr. Homan's eyes, illegal immigration is basically the same thing as human smuggling, and after vividly recounting the horrors of what it must be life to crawl over the stinking bodies of your immigrant comrades, he then channels this emotion into a noble fight... for policies that would punish not just the smugglers, but the victims as well. Mr. Homan's heart goes out to his immigrant taxi driver who is waiting painfully to be joined in America by his family... but Mr. Homan then explicitly calls for more restrictions on family immigration. He explains how many immigrants are kidnapped and held for ransom by the drug cartels that traffic in them... and then claims that these immigrants have taken the easy way into the country, and thus they are justifably deported for any crime.
The book brings out the standard arguments, talking points, and policy suggestions that can be found in any restrictionist literature, and I'm sorry to say that Mr. Homan's experience as ICE Director end up having very little connection to them. He vouches for ICE and Border Patrol members as being very good people, ostensibly risking their lives for the good of their nation... but in the end, Mr. Homan never actually makes a convincing argument that supports his book title: that defending the border the way we currently do (which is, incidentally, NOT the job of the ICE) is saving lives, rather than ending them.
May 13, 2020
Without question, the best book I have ever read on illegal immigration and the very scary situations it causes. I always thought it was a problem but did not realize that our southern border is the primary point of entry for human and sex trafficking, illegal drugs, Mexican and Central American gangs and terrorists. The Book is filled with statistics, data and federal report references to support all its statements. The sanctuary city situation is much worse than I imagined. The unlucky immigrants that happen to live in a sanctuary city is subjected to unbelievable crimes and blackmail that include threats to their families in their native country's. In summary - a great book but will give you sleepless nights of worry and concern for our communities and our immigrants that call the US home.
March 17, 2025
Even though Mr. Homan wrote this book in 2020, I was still excited to read it in 2025.
He gives so much detail into the workings of the various Homeland Security departments, having worked in them since the early 2000's, explaining so many details about our immigration system.
I am now much better able to understand how our country has arrived at the crisis situation created by Joe Biden's administration. While president, Barak Obama (for whom Mr. Homan worked) was deporting many of the illegals, separating families, the democrats had nothing to say about it, but when Donald Trump became president in 2016, the dems were nearly apoplectic about the immigration situation, screaming about children in cages, families being separated, wall construction, etc. The democrat party were hypocrites then and continue to be so today.
This book was great and I am glad Mr. Homan came out of retirement (again) to secure our country against illegal aliens.
He gives so much detail into the workings of the various Homeland Security departments, having worked in them since the early 2000's, explaining so many details about our immigration system.
I am now much better able to understand how our country has arrived at the crisis situation created by Joe Biden's administration. While president, Barak Obama (for whom Mr. Homan worked) was deporting many of the illegals, separating families, the democrats had nothing to say about it, but when Donald Trump became president in 2016, the dems were nearly apoplectic about the immigration situation, screaming about children in cages, families being separated, wall construction, etc. The democrat party were hypocrites then and continue to be so today.
This book was great and I am glad Mr. Homan came out of retirement (again) to secure our country against illegal aliens.
February 9, 2025
This book needed a better editor. Tom Homan has a lot of interesting things to say, but his speaking style didn't translate well to book form. I enjoyed some of his stories and proposals, but the book was tedious to read.
It felt like every chapter would circle back and just repeat the same things from the previous chapter. He also kept telling the same stories over and over again. So while I will continue to follow his commentary and policies in the new administration, I'm going to look elsewhere for a better book defending restrictive immigration policies.
It felt like every chapter would circle back and just repeat the same things from the previous chapter. He also kept telling the same stories over and over again. So while I will continue to follow his commentary and policies in the new administration, I'm going to look elsewhere for a better book defending restrictive immigration policies.
May 19, 2020
Tom Homan's book is so powerful!!!! His story on Operation No Mercy was so tragic and heartbreaking. His writing shows how much he cares not only about the Americans he has protected while in law enforcement but also the illegal aliens and migrants that he apprehends too. Best book on illegal immigration I have read by far. I encourage Republicans AND Democrats to read this book to truly get an understanding on this topic.
June 6, 2020
It's as simple as this.
Do you have a door on the front of your home? Do you lock the door to protect the contents and individuals living in this home? If your answer was affirmative to both of these questions then it should be easy to justify a border with a barrier and agents to enforce the barrier.
This book is loaded with statistics that support this agenda. If you have a more liberal approach to border protection you will not enjoy this fact-filled read.
Do you have a door on the front of your home? Do you lock the door to protect the contents and individuals living in this home? If your answer was affirmative to both of these questions then it should be easy to justify a border with a barrier and agents to enforce the barrier.
This book is loaded with statistics that support this agenda. If you have a more liberal approach to border protection you will not enjoy this fact-filled read.
December 1, 2022
Some repetition but worth reading.
December 3, 2024
Excellent book. He gives great technical information, but he also gives very helpful and insightful applications.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews