Trump Appoints Former ICE Director to ‘Border Czar’

Trump has appointed former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, Tom Homan, as the new ‘Border Czar.’

According to the president-elect, Homan’s new role will put him in charge of border, maritime, and aviation security.

Homan, who was originally tapped by the Obama administration to lead the ICE deportation branch in 2013, is notoriously anti-immigrant and his policies align closely with Trump’s recently announced mass deportation plan.

During a Fox interview on Monday, Homan said of his appointment, "I've been on this network for years complaining about what this administration did to this border. I've been yelling and screaming about it and what they need to do to fix it. So when the president asked me, ‘Would you come back and fix it?’ Of course. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't. I'm honored the president asked me to come back and help solve this national security crisis, so I'm looking forward to it.”

In the less than 24 hours since his appointment became public, Homan has announced that he plans to crack down on sanctuary cities like New York. He hopes Trump will file a lawsuit against any city refusing to comply with the deportation of undocumented individuals, and withhold federal funding.

Homan was also one of the brainchildren of Trump’s 2018 family separation policy, which separated more than 5,500 children from their parents at the southern border. As of this spring, more than 1,400 of those children have yet to be reunited with their parents.

Earlier this year, at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, Homan—a former police officer and Border Patrol agent—said, “No one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

During that same speech he said, “You’ve got my word. Trump comes back in January, I’ll be in his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”