Immigration enforcement agents see Trump’s border czar as one of their own

When Tom Homan retired in 2018 from serving as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a 30-plus year career in federal law enforcement, then-President Donald Trump remarked, “there’s no such thing as retirement for Tom.” 

For Trump’s second stint in the White House, Homan will serve as border czar, a new position that will oversee border, maritime and aviation security. The role does not require confirmation by the Senate. 

While Trump has generally picked government outsiders and household name political figures for his Cabinet and other senior appointments, Homan was a long-serving federal employee who started as a Border Patrol agent in the ‘80s and worked his way up to senior leadership positions. 

Mathew Silverman, the national president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said that he’s received many emails and phone calls from organization members who are excited about Homan’s return. 

“We've all had teachers in school that we really, really liked and admired, and by having somebody that you like and admire, you want to put forth more effort. You want to work harder for them. And I feel Tom Holman is somebody that these agents and officers are going to want to impress because they like what he's done in the past,” Silverman said. 

Likewise, Paul Perez, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, said that he doesn’t “think there’s a better person [to be] border czar than Tom Homan.” 

“He's not sitting behind a desk asking the impossible [or] asking someone to do something he hasn't done himself. So his experience is very, very critical,” he said. “When he puts policies in place to deal with, for example, mass deportations, he's not somebody coming from the outside that doesn't understand the law and how it should be applied.”

Trump plans to bolster immigration enforcement agencies, utilize the National Guard and modify asylum policy to significantly increase the number of undocumented immigrants who are removed from the country. 

ICE arrests increased under Homan’s leadership, and he received an award for his deportation efforts in 2015 from President Barack Obama when he headed the agency’s enforcement and removal operations. 

However Homan’s ICE failed to meet goals for recruiting, something that will be integral to the success — or failure — of the second Trump administration’s immigration policies. 

But Perez argued that the environment for recruiting has improved. 

“I think with the support that ICE officers and border patrol agents are going to get under this administration, plus the incentives that they're going to offer, it should be much easier to recruit and retain the people we need to get the job done,” he said. 

Trump has said that he would ask Congress to approve a 10% across-the-board raise for Border Patrol agents and implement recruitment and retention bonuses of $10,000 for new hires and existing staff. Still, Border Patrol has failed to keep pace with attrition in recent years despite offering incentives double or, in some cases, triple what Trump has proposed. 

Rep. Delia C. Ramirez, D-Ill., a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, criticized Trump’s appointment of Homan. 

“We know *exactly* who Tom Homan is. He is the architect of the ‘zero tolerance’ policy that separated thousands of migrant children from their parents with no plan for reunification,” she said in a statement. “He demonstrates cold disregard for the U.S. citizenship of the at least 4 million children with an undocumented parent, suggesting to keep families together, they should be deported together.” 

Homan was a proponent of the policy during Trump’s first administration that led to the separation of migrant parents and children. 

In an October interview with 60 Minutes, Homan was asked if mass deportations could occur without separating children who are U.S. citizens from their undocumented parents. He responded by saying: “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”