IRVING, Texas — Border czar Tom Homan said Friday night that he was “amazed” at how quickly the Trump administration was able to secure the southern border.

Speaking at the second annual State Freedom Caucus Summit near Dallas, Homan said illegal immigration was down 96% under President Donald Trump. Homan told the state lawmakers gathered at the conference that “even I am amazed” at how quickly the administration was able to shut down illegal immigration.

“We have the most secure border in the history of this nation,” Homan said. “The men and women of Border Patrol secured that border in seven weeks. … God bless the men and women of Border Patrol.”

Attendees of the summit include Republican lawmakers from across the country who are members of state level Freedom Caucus organizations, which are coalitions of lawmakers who push for conservative governance and legislation. The summit was organized by the State Freedom Caucus Foundation.

Inspired by the House Freedom Caucus, the State Freedom Caucus Network was founded in 2021 with the goal of creating state level organizations of conservative lawmakers and equipping them with “the high-level staff, strategy, and community conservatives need to take ground across the country.”

In a roughly 45 minute speech, Homan recounted Trump recruiting him to come back into his administration for a second time after four years of President Joe Biden allowing a record number of illegal aliens to cross into the United States. Homan said that he woke up every day during the Biden administration “pissed off” at what was happening at the border.

Homan said it was “bulls***” that the Biden administration was considered humane because of its lax border policies. He choked up talking about the number of girls who were raped and innocent people killed during human smuggling runs that exploded under Biden.

Homan added that he believed one reason Biden was so lax was because his administration believed most illegal aliens would be future Democrat voters.

“They sold this country out for future political power, and in my opinion, that is treasonous,” he said.

Commenting on resistance to the Trump administration by Democrats like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Homan said that they hated Trump more than they loved their own communities.

During his speech, Homan also promised that the Trump administration would go after the Latin American drug cartels that have flooded the United States with drugs.

“They’ve killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world. They’ve killed more Americans than any war that we’ve ever had,” Homan said. “And mark my word, President Trump will wipe them off the face of the earth.”

Homan’s comments came after the U.S. military took out a drug trafficking boat coming from Venezuela earlier this week. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would continue to carry out similar operations.

IRVING, Texas — Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said Friday night that he planned to remain on “offense” in Florida as he pressed conservative lawmakers gathered from across the country to govern boldly. 

DeSantis, whose time as governor has been punctuated by major conservative victories from education to illegal immigration, said he hopes to push Florida to have greater medical freedom and to eliminate property taxes. He made the remarks during a keynote address at the second annual State Freedom Caucus Summit at the Omni Las Colinas Hotel just outside Dallas.

“I didn’t get in there to be mushy on policy,” DeSantis said. “I knew what I believed. 
I told people what I was going to do. And my view was, I’m sitting at the desk the first day I was governor, I looked around the office, no decorations yet, it was empty, and I said, you know, I don’t know what SOB’s going to succeed me in this office, but they are not going to have anything to do.”

DeSantis was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a coalition of House Republicans who have fought to reign in federal spending and to advance conservative policies at the federal level. The State Freedom Caucus Network was founded in 2021 with the goal of creating state level organizations of conservative lawmakers and equipping them with “the high-level staff, strategy, and community conservatives need to take ground across the country.”

On the lines of medical freedom, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that the state would seek to end all vaccine mandates, including requirements for schools. DeSantis said Friday that he didn’t believe government should coerce people into certain treatment. He also said people couldn’t truly have private property if they effectively had to pay “rent” to the government for it.

During his speech, DeSantis highlighted his record on fighting lockdowns during COVID, battles to protect parental rights in education, elimination of DEI at public universities, and fights with Disney.

“
I think woke ideology is toxic whether it’s being imposed by a government agency, or whether it’s being imposed by a multinational corporation. I think it’s wrong,” DeSantis said.

The Florida governor also celebrated the Thursday decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked a lower court’s order to shut down the Everglades-based illegal alien detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz.

“Every time I get out of bed in the morning, I get sued by the Left,” DeSantis said. “You can’t be worried about getting sued, you know that’s what they’re gonna do, and they go to liberal judges, and we know based on the judge, we have no chance at the trial court, and so we know we’ll just win on appeal.”

He said that Florida would be partnering with the Trump administration to establish other illegal alien detention centers.

DeSantis said that Florida’s massive shift to the Right under his leadership showed the impact of governing conservatively, saying that “people respond to results.”

“It’s not always easy,” he said. “None of this is cost free, but it’s worth it. And what we are doing in these states by showing that conservative policies that built this country, that our Founding Fathers believed in, we show that those work, that people vote with their feet — that is the best possible evidence we can produce to show people this is the way forward, not just us, for our kids and our grandkids.”