Donald Trump appoints Tom Homan as “responsible for all deportations”

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that Tom Homan, his former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will be responsible for the mass deportations Trump promised during his campaign.

“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 (“The Border Czar”),” he wrote on his Truth Social website late on Sunday.

Trump said Homan would be “responsible for all deportations of illegal aliens back to their country of origin” and would also oversee the northern and southern borders and “all maritime and air security.”

“I have known Tom for a long time, and there is no one better at policing and controlling our borders,” Trump said. “Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt that he will do a fantastic and long-awaited job.”

Homan was contacted via his website for comment.

Trump had said that Homan, a Project 2025 employee, would play a role in his administration if he were re-elected in October.

Homan is one of dozens of former Trump administration officials who contributed to Project 2025, a nearly 900-page document detailing policy plans for the next Republican administration developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Although Trump repeatedly tried to distance himself from Project 2025 during his campaign, his own platform shares broad policy similarities with the document, including plans for mass deportations.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday morning futuresHoman defended Trump’s plan for mass deportations and said ICE would work to carry them out 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 told host Maria Bartiromo.

“When we go out there, we’ll know who we’re looking for. We will most likely know where they will be and it will be done in a humane way… these people.” Well taken care of. It will be a humane but necessary mass deportation.

He also denied that the military would be involved in arresting and detaining immigrants in the country illegally and that the focus would be on those who pose a threat to public safety and national security.

Homan also said Trump’s plan will “save taxpayers money” in the long run.

According to a recent report by the nonprofit advocacy group American Immigration Council, the cost of arresting, detaining, processing and deporting one million people per year over more than a decade would be $967.9 billion, or about $88 billion per year. The report also said mass deportations would disrupt key industries that are already struggling with shortages, such as construction and agriculture.

Asked about the cost of the plan, Trump told NBC News on Thursday: “It’s not about the price…Really, we don’t have a choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now.” They will return to these countries because they will not stay here. There is no price.

Polls during the campaign showed a majority of voters supported mass deportations, but exit polls on Election Day showed stronger support for a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants over deporting them, while immigration moved down voters’ priority list slipped.

Homan worked in immigration enforcement for more than three decades. A former New York City police officer, he joined the U.S. Border Patrol in 1984. He worked as a border patrol agent, investigator, supervisor and in other roles before being named executive associate director of ICE in 2013 during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

Trump appointed Homan as acting director of ICE in January 2017, a position he held until his retirement in June 2018.

During that time, he oversaw the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, which resulted in the separation of thousands of families at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Atlantic called Homan the “intellectual father” of politics in a 2022 report, saying he was one of the first to propose the idea of ​​prosecuting illegal migrants who illegally cross the border with their children and separating families.

The plan was rejected as “heartless and impractical” during the Obama administration, the report said, but was later adopted during Trump’s first term.

In 2023, Homan said he was tired of hearing about family separations. “I’m still getting sued over this… I don’t care, right? The bottom line is that we enforced the law,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

At the National Conservatism Conference earlier this year, Homan said: “Trump is coming back in January, I will be on his heels and carry out the largest deportation operation this country has ever seen. They didn’t see shit. * Until 2025.