By JILL COLVIN and REBECCA SANTANA

WASHINGTON (AP) – President-elect Donald Trump say Tom Homanhis former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will serve as “border czar” in his new administration, a position that is likely to play a key role in Trump’s campaign pledges to secure the border between USA and Mexico and mount. a massive deportation operation.

“I am pleased to announce that former ICE Director and border control farmer 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 the southern and northern borders and “maritime and aviation security,” Trump said Homan “will be responsible for all deportations of illegal aliens back to their country of origin,” a central part of his agenda.

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

Homan is a former Border Patrol agent who rose to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2017 and 2018 as acting director. He has never been confirmed by the Senate, and his new role does not require it.

Bringing him in shows how far the Trump administration will go to fulfill the immigration pledges that have been a hallmark of the campaign. However, Homan also balked at rhetoric suggesting massive summaries.

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

He also said: “You have my word. Trump comes back in January, I’ll be hot on his heels when he comes back, and I’ll be leading the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen.”

He has said, however, in recent interviews that those targeted — at least initially — would be people who pose a risk to public safety, and dismissed suggestions that The US military would be assisted in finding and deporting immigrants.

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

“It will be a well-targeted, well-planned operation led by ICE people. The men and women of ICE do this every day. They are good at it,” he said.

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

When asked if there was a way to carry out deportations without separating families, he said: “Families can be deported together.” He also said immigration enforcement operations at the workplace — which the Biden administration has largely halted — would be “necessary.”

Gil Kerlikowske, who has known Homan since Kerlikowske ran U.S. Customs and Border Protection under then-President Barack Obama, said Homan likely got the job because he has been a strong and vocal supporter of Trump since he left office and knows how the border and immigration work.

He added that unlike other figures such as Stephen Miller, an immigration activist who has also been tapped for a top White House job, Homan’s decades in immigration jobs mean he knows the difficulties of launching a massive deportation operation.

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

Trump has long ago vowed mass deportation of people living illegally in the country, but logistical and financial challenges make this difficult to achieve.

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 which the US does not have diplomatic relations, such as Venezuela .

Obama carried out 432,000 deportations in 2013, the highest annual total since records were kept. Deportations under Trump have never topped 350,000.

Homan began his career in 1984 as a Border Patrol agent before moving to ICE. He was a relatively low-key but influential figure in immigration enforcement in the Obama administration, leading ICE’s enforcement and removal operations arm — tasked with tracking down people who have no right to be in the country and remove them.

During his first administration, Trump abandoned Obama-era policies that limited deportations to people who posed a threat to public safety, convicted felons and recent border crossers, effectively detaining anyone without legal status.

During that time, Homan presided over a 40 percent increase in deportation arrests and instituted policies to make immigration arrests in courthouses and detain pregnant women.

He was also a key figure on immigration when the Trump administration launched its zero-tolerance policy, which separated migrant parents from their children on the US-Mexico border.

When Homan stepped down as acting ICE chief, he said he wanted to spend more time with his family. In an interview with the AP in 2018, he said he had not intended to stay on in the Trump administration, but did so after then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly asked him to stay on. 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 returned as “frontier tsar”.

Homan said the announcement it was premature. The reason he gave at the time may provide some insight into how he thinks the “frontier czar” position should work this time around.

“I think any kind of border czar has to be someone who coordinates a 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 entitled “Defend the Border and Save Lives: Solving the Greatest Security and Humanitarian Crisis” and was a frequent guest on Fox News.

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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