US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that Tom Homan, formerly the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will be named “border czar” in his administration.
Trump wrote late Sunday on Truth Social, his social media platform:
“I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation’s Borders.”
He said Homan will oversee not only border security, but also “maritime and aviation security” and the deportation of illegal migrants to their home countries. Trump emphasised that he has full confidence in Homan and his ability to “carry out an important and long-awaited task.”
Earlier, NBC News cited sources as saying that Trump’s team was considering shutting down two migration programmes launched by the Joe Biden administration, which would lead to the deportation of more than 1.3 million legal migrants.
The migration issue and Trump’s promises
Most Americans consider immigration a top political priority and would like to see immigration to the US reduced.
Trump planned to implement a historically restrictive US immigration programme starting in 2025. He promised to conduct “the largest domestic deportation operation in US history,” which would require moving military troops to the US-Mexico border, allowing ICE workplace raids, denying due process to unauthorised migrants, building more ICE detention centres along the southern border and reversing the Flores agreement that protects migrant children.
Both the military and the National Guard will be used to round up and deport unauthorised migrants. Trump also intended to abolish birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents, deport and revoke visas of foreign Palestinian student protesters, abolish humanitarian parole, and impose “ideological screening.”
