Thomas Douglas Homan is a retired American law enforcement officer and government official who served notably as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump Administration, January 30, 2017-June 29, 2018 In this position, Homan found himself to be one of the loudest voices for some of the most unpopular immigration policies, separating children from their parents who had trekked across dangerous areas controlled by criminal gangs and harsh deserts. This policy was defended as a deterrent against illegal immigration and human trafficking. Since retirement from government service, Homan has been a regular Fox News contributor, opining on all things immigration-related. He also sits as “border czar” during the second term of President Trump and shapes the border security strategies under his watch in the United States. This appointment also makes him one of the key persons on U.S. immigration policy and developments regarding the borderline between the U.S. and Mexico.
Tom Homan Career
Thomas Homan was born in West Carthage, New York. He attended Jefferson Community College and graduated with an associate degree in criminal justice. He went to SUNY Polytechnic Institute for his bachelor’s degree. Homan started off his career as a policeman in West Carthage and joined INS in 1984. He went on to become a Border Patrol agent, investigator, and then supervisor before being appointed by Barack Obama, the President of the United States, to the position of Executive Associate Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the year 2013. By 2014, Homan became a vocal advocate for the contentious policy of taking away children from their parents to deter illegal immigration. The media once called him the “intellectual father” of the policy, which he had described years earlier when it was rejected to become a signature of the Trump Administration. In an interview with Caitlin Dickerson, he said that separating families was an effective enforcement tool because what was being targeted was the fear of separation from their parents to deter the crossing of illegal borders.
His work regarding immigration enforcement was recognized when President Obama gave him the Presidential Rank Award as a Distinguished Executive in 2015. In a Washington Post article at the time, Homan was hailed for his above-and-beyond work in deportation efforts: “Thomas Homan deports people. And he’s really good at it.”
Acting director of ICE
On January 30, 2017, the Trump administration transferred Daniel Ragsdale, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to his previous position of deputy director, installing Thomas Homan as the acting ICE Director. In May 2017 Homan announced that ICE arrests had reached 41,319 from Inauguration Day through the end of April-a jump of 38% compared to the same period in 2016. As acting ICE Director, Homan was in the headlines for telling undocumented immigrants to “be afraid, but later denied saying “aliens commit more crimes than US citizens.” On November 14, 2017, President Trump nominated Homan to be ICE Director. By February 2018, Homan was warning that politicians who backed sanctuary city policies need to be held legally accountable. In April of 2018, Homan and Kevin McAleenan urged Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen to institute the now-conscience shocking “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy that subjected prosecutions of parents to the separation of children from their families. Homan participated in the news conference announcing the implementation of this policy in May 2018. On April 30, 2018, he announced that he was retiring as acting ICE Director, effective June 2018. On June 5, 2018, Homan appeared in a public discussion alongside the Policy Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, where he defended taking children away from their parents as part of the administration’s immigration enforcement strategy. This revised passage includes key terms like “ICE Director,” “Donald Trump,” “sanctuary cities,” and “Zero Tolerance policy,” which are included for the purpose of SEO optimization to this text, thus making it more visible in search engines, especially on subjects dealing with immigration and enforcement policies and tenure of Thomas Homan.
Post-government
In July 2019, Homan testified before the House Oversight Committee about the controversial family separation policy by the Trump administration. On February 25, 2022, Homan was a scheduled keynote speaker at the America First Political Action Conference near Orlando, Florida. He quit before that conference got underway, though, when he learned through a friend that the conference’s founder, Nick Fuentes, had publicly praised Putin for the invasion of Ukraine. He left very controversially. In February 2022, Homan joined the Heritage Foundation and became a key contributor to its Project 2025, which advocates for mass arrests, detentions, and deportations of undocumented immigrants across the United States. It is uncannily similar to the proposals Trump has put out so far for a second term: Both promise aggressive immigration enforcement. Speaking last July at the National Conservatism Conference, Homan said he would lead what he claimed would be the biggest deportation force the country had ever seen if Trump were to get back into office, promoting the idea of a crackdown unparalleled. Trump seemed to indicate that he wants Homan back in the administration at a campaign rally shortly after. During the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024, Homan termed Biden’s immigration policies “national suicide” and warned “millions of illegal aliens” to start packing their bags. There have been added words that include immigration, deportation, Trump administration, and Project 2025 that would
Second Trump presidency
On November 10, 2024, Donald Trump announced that Thomas Homan, former Acting Director of ICE, would join his administration-incoming as the new “border czar,” spearheading key initiatives on immigration enforcement and border security integral to the further development of the U.S. strategy on border protection-an issue central to Trump’s stated priorities on securing America’s borders and reforming immigration, an issue likely to be dominant in the next administration.
