US President-elect Donald Trump in furtherance of his strict immigration agenda recently appointed Tom Homan, a former police officer as his chief of immigration.
Who is this Tom Homan and what role would he be expected to play in furthering Trump’s immigration policies?
In the build-up to the 2024 presidential elections, Donald Trump promised a sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration policy which aims to build upon the strict immigration measures he put in place during his first term.
This time around, Trump intends to commence mass deportations of millions of people on “day one”, a goal that could mean widespread workplace raids and the involvement of the U.S. military, all while putting federal resources into expanding the border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. This policy targets millions of undocumented immigrants and would go a long way in redefining the nation’s approach to newcomers.
Trump also promises to issue an executive order ending the long-standing Constitutional principle that children born in the U.S. are granted citizenship. Trump said he will instruct federal agencies to require that any child born in the U.S. have at least one parent who is a lawful permanent resident or citizen, before they can be issued a passport or Social Security number.
The announcement of this policies during the campaign has been sending jitters to individuals who are expected to be affected greatly by this policy. Showing his seriousness, Trump recently appointed Tom Homan to head the country’s immigration force, but who is Trump’s new Border Czar?
Thomas Homan, a new yorker holds an associate degree in criminal justice from Jefferson Community College and a bachelor’s degree from Sunny Polytechnic Institute.
Homan served as a police officer having joined the Immigration and Naturalization service in 1984, serving as a Border patrol agent, investigator, and supervisor. He has worked under six presidents during his three decades in law enforcement after being tapped up by Barack Obama.
During President Obama’s administration, Homan was executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Under his guidance, the ICE carried out a record number of deportations.
In 2024, Homan argued that separating children from their caregivers would be an effective means of discouraging illegal border crossings stating that “Most parents don’t want to be separated (from their children)” which he noted made separation an effective tool for immigration enforcement.
In January 2017, Trump appointed Homan as the acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directorate and by the end of April that year, Homan announced the ICE had arrested 41,319 people between January and the end of April, a 38% increase from the same period the year before.
In April 2018, he formally advised Secretary of Homeland Security Kristjen Nielson to implement the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on immigration, including the prosecution of parents and the separation of children from their families.
Homan has constantly described immigration at the US border as the biggest national security vulnerability the US has seen since 9/11 stressing the need to fix it.
During Trump’s first tenure, he often appeared at White House press briefings to defend his agents’ arrests of undocumented immigrants and call for stronger enforcement,. He also applauded Trump for “taking the shackles off” ICE by allowing agents to make a broader range of arrests.
in an interview on Fox Sunday Morning Futures hours before his appointment was announced, Homan stated he would carry out a “well-targeted, planned operation, conducted … by the men of ICE.” on immigration.
Speaking at an event months earlier, he had told illegal immigrants ““You better start packing now, Cause you’re going home.”
With Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration and Tom Homan’s equally strong stance, it is expected to be a long journey for illegal migrants across the US as the incoming administration seeks to carry out mass deportation on a very grand scale.
Immigrants rights groups have however stated their readiness to challenge the incoming administration’s anti-migrant policies through protests, local legislation and lawsuits.
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