by Anonymous
Note: This article has not been updated since 2021.
Thomas Homan, the Ex-Director of ICE and currently FOX Business News contributor, is a vile man. Before those two roles, his career boasted being a New York police officer, an INS agent (precursor to today’s ICE), a Border Patrol agent — a cop in every shape and form. As ICE director/”Border Czar” under the Trump Administration, Homan was an advocate of family separation at the border and enabled a record number of deportations. When he is on his deathbed, we all ought to remember him by his infamous quote, “If you’re in this country illegally and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried,” and then we should dance on his grave.
Ironically, the vast majority of the people illegally entering this country are doing so because U.S. and Western imperialism has looted and terrorized people’s countries of origin. Whether it be CIA backed rightwing coups and genocides, IMF or World Bank extractive economic policies, austere trade embargos, or any other neocolonial acts, it is because of the devastation and suffocation of these countries, that people flee. Homan is a domestic enforcer of this global fascist scheme, and as such we need to be relentless in his indictment.
What happened?
In October 2019, Homan was invited to speak on campus. Unsurprisingly, Homan’s speaking role was organized by one of Penn’s most consistently bigoted groups, the College Republicans. Since Homan worked under the Obama Administration as well, the talk was supposed to be an examination of deportation across time and “across the aisle.” Needless to say, kidnapping millions of people from their homes is ethnic cleansing and white power regardless of the politics or race of the executive.
A petition quickly circulated the Penn community and garnered more than 500 signatures over a couple days, calling on Penn to reject his speaking role due to the harm inherent in bringing him to campus and sharing his hateful messages. However, Penn stood behind the invitation on the basis of “free speech,” which rightfully angered us. And so, we fought back. Hundreds of students and community members discretely organized. We filled up many of the seats in the venue and surrounded the building, holding signs and chanting without break from the moment Homan stepped onto the stage until the event was shut down.
In trollish retaliation, College Republicans hosted him again. Fear of physical confrontation (as the previous event had enticed the Philly far-right) prompted Penn to move the event to Houston Hall and to only allow student attendance. Security surrounded the Hall, not due to the far-right but due to students who sought to disrupt. Several dozens of students (more than attended the event) mobilized again and held a sit-in at the entrance, forcing attendees to scurry through a back exit. While the event was not shut down, our constant chanting permeated the hall and was an unavoidable voice of dissent to the attendees.
From this whole debacle arose many articles and thinkpieces across the Penn community on questions of fascism, free speech, the immigration system, and much more. We must expect a wide-range of views at a place with varying backgrounds like Penn. Many students here are heirs to big fortunes and well-off suburban livings, while some are undocumented or FGLI and actually know and have to deal with the horrors of an encroaching fascism. In any case, we know history; this is an open book test. We understand the racist violence that people like Homan engage in, and Penn’s decision to repeatedly allow him to speak shows where it stands in this battle. This is why we must fight back against any and all of these invitations. Clamoring for civility all the while the oppressor commits genocide against the oppressed requires a high degree of ignorance and inhumanity. You either stand for or against fascism.
Penn Disorientation Guide 