“The United West educates and activates freedom-minded people, wherever they may live, to effectively develop strategies and tactics which propagate the exceptionalism of Western Civilization over and against the Satanic choke-hold of Islam.” These are the words verbatim from The United West’s mission statement.
The United West was originally founded by Tom Trento in 2006 under the name Florida Security Council and, in 2011, later rebranded as The United West, with current president Donald Trump reportedly in attendance at the relaunch event. The organization has been “stoking anti-Muslim hate for over a decade,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Indeed, according to Mark Potok, formerly a senior fellow with SPLC, “[The United West] is a vicious, conspiracy-minded, Muslim-bashing group.” The organization has a relationship with key officials in the Trump administration, including “border czar” Tom Homan.
The United West promotes a narrative that Islam is a threat to the United States, and particularly to “Western Civilization”; its strategic objective, as outlined on their site, is “to halt the expansion of Shariah law,” and to “awaken the West… to the clear and present danger of violent, coercive Islam.”
Tom Trento, founder and executive director of The United West, has been a central figure in the organization’s anti-Muslim mission and work.
In 2013, during a 9/11 memorial in Venice, Florida, Trento, as a speaker, reportedly stated that “Islam is the enemy” and that the “Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated America.” He also reportedly told the audience that “I’m not talking about radical Islam or moderate Islam. I’m talking about all Islam. Their goal is to get every single one of us to convert to Islam. And they won’t stop until we do.”
Trento has spent many more years villainizing Muslims, persistently claiming that the United States and the West are ‘at war’ with Islam.
In a 2015 email from The United West, Trento reportedly wrote, “I knew all my years of academic work in Islam and related areas of law enforcement and activism would be required in what will be an extended, vicious, deadly, horrible war in a clash of two incompatible civilizations, the Judeo-Christian West and Islam.”
In 2016, an email sent by The United West newsletter reportedly claimed: “There is no doubt that, for those with eyes to see, we are at war with devout Muslims who follow the jihad teachings of doctrinal Islam. Therefore, it is essential that all Americans adopt a ‘war-footing’ mentality and are constantly prepared for any threat, any situation, any problem.”
Trento’s views are reflected throughout The United West’s webpage, where numerous pages are dedicated to spreading Islamophobic hate. In an article from November 2023, The United West claimed that “In short, rape, torture, and beheading is not a Hamas thing. It’s an Islamic thing. It’s not an aberration. It’s standard operating procedure.”
Additionally, in text accompanying an interview published in May 2025, Trento stated, “It’s no longer just about terrorism. It’s about territory… now they’re using real estate, politics, and lawfare to conquer us instead.” The interview was conducted with Amy Mek of RAIR Foundation USA, a hate organization and website that regularly publishes anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, including that Muslims seek to “infiltrate and destabilize the West.”
Other posts include one published in March 2024, titled “Warning: RAMADAN, ISLAMIC MONTH OF JIHAD!” seeking to “warn America, Israel, and the world what happens during the 30 days of Ramadan AND what has been threatened to occur!”
In addition to their anti-Muslim rhetoric, The United West organization site repeatedly cites that their members, since 2012, have “regular national security missions to Israel and the Middle East.” According to their site, these visits have aimed to train Americans in understanding what “Islamic Terrorism” is and looks like. In their 2019 expedition to Israel, The United West presented to the PR Newswire website that it sent members to “study and evaluate Israel’s border walls and barriers in light of the border crisis in the United States.”
The United West has seemingly sought to promote its anti-Muslim and anti-migrant viewpoints through its ties to key officials in the Trump administration. Trump himself was reportedly in attendance at the 2011 launch event of The United West, where he posed for a photograph with Islamophobe Frank Gaffney, who “sees Islam as a national security threat,” and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who “has been prosecuted for anti-Muslim speech.”
In 2024, The United West played a role in organizing support for Trump’s presidential campaign, stating, in one email, that the “STRATEGIC, educational objective of The United West is to mobilize enough patriotic Americans to elect Donald Trump as President and many pro-American, pro-border security, pro-Israel politicians, at all levels, to save America from the current Democrat disaster.”
Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called “Border Czar,” who served as acting ICE director from 2017 to 2018 and now oversees enforcement and removals, has also been closely associated with The United West.
In 2020, along with publishing his book titled Defend the Border and Save Lives, Homan launched a border-focused project called “Defend the Border and Save Lives” in collaboration with The United West. As SPLC’s report explains, “[This project] is a media and promotional endeavor tied to Homan’s personal brand and a book of his with the same title.”
Mary Wierbicki, the project’s “director of operations, also serves as social media director for The United West and is co-founder of Sharia Crime Stoppers, another project tied to Trento’s group that produces anti-Islam content.” Additionally, the director of research for the project is Clare Lopez, who “is a former CIA analyst turned anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist.” Lopez has stated that “[w]hen people in other bona fide religions follow their doctrines they become better people – Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews. When Muslims follow their doctrine, they become jihadists.”
“Defend the Border and Save Lives” and “The United West” appeared to not only be tied politically, but also financially. As SPLC notes in their 2022 report, “On the [Defend the Border and Save Lives] donation page, checks can be mailed to the same post office box in Lake Worth, Florida, that is associated with The United West. A link to the Defend the Border and Save Lives website is also on The United West’s website.”
The project and The United West have also collaborated on hosting fundraising events, such as the sold-out private event on November 1, 2022, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, which premiered a television program associated with Homan’s Defend the Border and Save Lives project.
