Trump announces Tom Homan as “border czar.”

By JILL COLVIN and REBECCA SANTANA

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says Tom Homan, his former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will serve as “border czar” in his new administration, a position likely to play a key role in Trump's campaign promises will be used to secure the US-Mexico border and carry out a massive deportation operation.

“I am pleased to announce that former ICE director and stalwart border control expert Tom Homan will be joining the Trump administration in charge of our nation’s borders,” he wrote on his Truth Social website late Sunday.

In addition to overseeing southern and northern borders and “maritime and air security,” Trump said Homan would be “responsible for all deportations of illegal aliens back to their country of origin,” a central part of his agenda.

He says he has “no doubt that Homan will do a fantastic and long-awaited job.”

Homan is a hard-charging former Border Patrol agent who worked his way up to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement as acting director in 2017 and 2018. He was never confirmed by the Senate, and his new role does not require it.

Signing him up shows the lengths the Trump administration is likely to go to to implement the tough immigration promises that were a hallmark of the campaign. However, Homan has also rejected rhetoric suggesting massive crackdowns.

At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington earlier this year, Homan said that while he believes the government needs to prioritize national security threats, “no one is off the table.” If you're here illegally, you better look out the shoulder.”

He also said, “You have my word. Trump is coming back in January, I will be on his heels when he returns, and I will lead the largest deportation operation this country has ever seen.”

But he said in recent interviews that those targeted would be people who posed a threat to public safety, at least initially, and dismissed suggestions that the U.S. military would help find and deport immigrants would.

“Focus on the threats to public safety and national security first, because they are the worst of the worst,” he said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” He also said ICE would take steps to implement Trump's plans in a “humane manner.”

“It will be a targeted and planned operation carried out by the men of ICE. The men and women of ICE do this every day. They’re good at it,” he said.

During a “60 Minutes” interview before the election, Homan called suggestions of mass raids on neighborhoods or building camps to hold people “ridiculous.”

Asked whether there was a way to carry out deportations without separating families, he said: “Families can be deported together.” He also said that workplace immigration enforcement measures – largely adopted by the Biden administration were discontinued – were “necessary”.

Gil Kerlikowske, who knows Homan from when Kerlikowske led U.S. Customs and Border Protection under then-President Barack Obama, said Homan likely got the job because he had been a strong, vocal supporter of U.S. Customs and Border Protection since leaving office Trump is and knows how the border and immigration work.

He added that unlike other figures like Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who was also tapped for a top White House job, Homan's decades of immigration work mean he understands the difficulties of launching a massive deportation effort.

“Tom has a much better understanding of what can be done and what is practical,” said Kerlikowske.

Trump has long announced the massive deportation of people living in the country illegally, but logistical and financial challenges make implementation difficult.

ICE has about 41,500 detention beds at any one time, and countries must agree to take back their citizens, which is not always a given, especially for those with whom the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations, such as Venezuela.

Obama carried out 432,000 deportations in 2013, the highest annual deportations on record. Deportations under Trump never exceeded 350,000.

Homan began his career as a Border Patrol agent in 1984 before joining ICE. He was a relatively low-key but influential figure on immigration enforcement in the Obama administration and led ICE's Division of Enforcement and Deportation Operations – tasked with tracking down people who do not have legal status in the country and deporting them.

During his first term, Trump abolished the Obama-era policy that limited deportations to people who posed a threat to public safety, convicted criminals and those who had recently crossed the border, effectively making everyone without legal status Residence status punishable.

During this time, Homan led a 40 percent increase in deportation arrests and instituted policies to conduct immigration arrests in court and detain pregnant women.

He was also a key figure on immigration when the Trump administration implemented its zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

When Homan retired as acting head of ICE, he said he wanted to spend more time with family. In a 2018 interview with the AP, he said he had not planned to stay in the Trump administration but did so after then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly asked him to stay. Homan said he was at his own retirement party when he received the request. Kelly gave him a weekend to decide and he accepted.

After Homan resigned, it appeared he might return when Trump said in 2019 he wanted to bring Homan back as “border czar.”

Homan said the announcement was premature. The reasoning he gave then could shed light on how he thinks the “border tsar” position needs to work this time.

“I think that any border czar needs to be a person who coordinates a whole-of-government response to the border,” adding, “That's not how it was set up,” he told Fox News at the time.

After leaving the Trump administration, Homan wrote a book called “Defend the Border and Save Lives: Solving our Most Humanitarian and Security Crisis” and was a frequent guest on Fox News.

___

Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

Originally published: November 10, 2024 at 11:44 pm EST