“The Border Tsar,” as Donald Trump calls him, is back in charge. The future American president announced this Sunday, November 10, the return of Tom Homan as head of the agency responsible for border control and immigration, ICE. “I am pleased to announce that former ICE Director and Border Control stalwart Tom Homan will be joining the Trump Administration where he will be responsible for our nation's borders. […] I have known Tom for a long time, and there is no one better than him to monitor and control our borders,” the Republican billionaire wrote on his network Truth Social.
Real name Thomas Homan, the 62-year-old man had already been head of the border and immigration agency under the first presidency of Donald Trump, between 2017 and 2018. This time he will have the task of carrying out the largest expulsion operation of illegal migrants in the history of the United States, as promised by the Republican candidate during his campaign. And thus to embody in facts and actions Donald Trump's racist and xenophobic rhetoric towards immigrants who are “poisoning the blood” of the United States and “invading” the country.
Involvement in ultra-conservative circles
After starting as a police officer in New York State, Tom Homan joined ICE in 1989. An agency within which he rose through all the ranks, notably becoming its deputy executive director in 2013, under the presidency of Barack Obama. Already at the time, the latter had distinguished himself for positions which had largely divided within the Democratic camp, in particular already pleading to separate children from parents who had entered American territory illegally. This did not prevent him from receiving the highest medal of the American public service in 2015, from the hands of the former American president.
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It was under the Trump presidency that he took charge of ICE, in 2017, before resigning almost a year and a half later for “personal and family” reasons. But since then, Tom Homan has never really left the public debate. He notably appeared on stage during the Republican Convention last July with Donald Trump, claiming to have “a message for the millions of illegal immigrants that Joe Biden has allowed into our country: you better start packing your bags now” .
Contributor on the subject of immigration to “Project 2025”, this major ultra-conservative roadmap imagined by the think tank The Heritage Fondation for the second term of Donald Trump – from whom he himself had sought to distance himself during his campaign – Tom Hogan fully found his place in the Trumpist sphere. He notably accepted the invitation to participate in a nationalist conference from a certain Nick Fuentes in 2022, before withdrawing at the last moment. The latter, an openly Holocaust denier and anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi, misogynist and even white supremacist influencer, was notably hosted for dinner with Kanye West by Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022. Tom Homan finally explained to Huff Post having withdrawn from this conference after having seen… the pro-Putin positions of the host, which he claimed not to know before. While explaining that he had little faith in the articles calling Nick Fuentes a white nationalist, explaining that he himself had been unfairly treated as intolerant and racist for having “enforced immigration laws”.
“If Trump comes back in January, I'll be right on his heels”
During this presidential campaign, Tom Homan also largely supported the Republican candidate's projects. “You have my word. If Donald Trump returns in January, I will be on his heels and I will lead the largest deportation operation this country has ever known,” he said last June. In particular, he promises to resume the policy of separating families at the border, while during Donald Trump's first term, nearly 4,000 migrant children were separated from their parents placed in detention. He also assured that he wanted to resume raids to arrest illegal workers directly in their workplace, a method which had been interrupted under the mandate of Joe Biden.
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Despite everything, he also affirmed that the border and immigration control agency will implement the promises of the new American president in a “humane manner”, refuting the possibility of seeing the army intervene to arrest immigrants in situation irregular. “This will be a well-targeted and planned operation, led by the men of ICE. The men and women of ICE do this every day. They are good at it,” he said. a few weeks ago on the set of Fox News. But it's difficult to pretend not to know Donald Trump now: he is hardly a fan of the separation of powers and the delegation of decisions.
