Trump names former acting ICE director Tom Homan as new 'border czar'

After making immigration a central issue in this year's presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Tom Homan would join his administration as the new “border czar.”

Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social late Sunday that Homan would be responsible for the country's borders, “including but not limited to the southern border, the northern border, all maritime and air security.”

“I have known Tom for a long time and there is no one better at monitoring and controlling our borders,” Trump wrote.

Homan is returning to a top border patrol role in the Trump White House after serving as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first 18 months of Trump's first term. Prior to his tenure in the Trump Administration, he served in the Obama Administration as Executive Associate Director of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. In 2015, Obama awarded Homan the Presidential Rank Award.

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Homan joins a Trump administration that has promised to carry out mass deportations that Trump said would run into the millions.

When Trump was in office, ICE was criticized by Democrats for policies that separated immigrant parents from their children. It was a policy that Homan defended. Homan told PBS in 2018 that keeping families together during arrests was a logistical problem.

“A child cannot go into the custody of the U.S. Marshals if the parents are accused of the crime of illegal entry,” he told PBS.

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Homan said some U.S. citizens could also be among those deported under Trump's presidency. In an interview with CBS News, he suggested that U.S.-born children of migrants living in the country illegally could be deported.

“Her parents entered the country absolutely illegally and had a child who knew he was in the country illegally. So he caused this crisis,” he said.

Homan has also widely criticized cities and states for being so-called “sanctuaries” for migrants who are in the U.S. illegally. In 2018, he suggested that California should lose its funding after the state passed a bill banning law enforcement from inquiring about a person's legal status and arresting people whose only alleged crime is related to the Immigration stood.

Homan said in an interview with Fox News that the policy puts “politics above public safety.”

While 2017 saw a decrease in apprehensions at the U.S. southwest border, apprehensions increased in 2018 and reached a record high in 2019.

After COVID-19 caused significant disruptions at border crossings in 2020, apprehensions rose to unprecedented levels in 2021 to 2023 before easing in 2024, ICE data shows.