Trump announced on Monday that Tom Homan will be joining his administration and will be "in charge of our nation's borders." According to the president-elect, that includes "all deportations of illegal aliens back to their country of origin."
A lifelong member of law enforcement, Homan was acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump's first term in office. Ronald Vitiello, a former Border Patrol chief and another acting ICE director under Trump, says Homan "knows how the machine operates. He did it as a front line, he did it as a supervisor, and he did it as the lead executive. He doesn't have anything to learn on that side of the equation."
Ira Mehlman of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) also likes the selection.
"Nobody knows the border better than Tom Homan," Mehlman tells AFN. "He has been in this for a very, very long time. He understands what the dynamics are, he knows how to go about this, and he knows this is something that needs to be addressed immediately."
Trump has already said that immigration reform is going to be part of his first 100-day agenda. Mehlman said that's good to know. "Tom can hit the ground running on this and start to reverse some of the enormous damage that was inflicted on this country over the past four years," he says.
Some individuals, politicians, and special-interest groups are opposed to immigration reform and/or deportation, saying it's everything from "racist" to "unkind" and "immoral." But those on the other side of the argument say people cannot just show up illegally and reside in the U.S. without going through the proper steps like legal immigrants.
"Obviously you know you have to go about this policy in a rational way," says the FAIR spokesman. "… We didn't get into this crisis overnight and we're not going to get ourselves out of it overnight, but you have to start somewhere. When you have somebody like Tom Homan who's been doing this for a very long time, he's going to know where to start."
Mehlman argues that voters across various demographics chose Trump for reasons that include border security.
"Removing people who are in the country illegally is not a racial or an ethnic issue, it is a question of people who have violated our laws," said Mehlman. "It doesn't matter whether they came from Latin America, from Europe, or any place else: if you have violated the law there have to be consequences. And we should expect that the new administration will just honor the law and enforce it when they find people who are in the country illegally."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Fox News reported early Tuesday that President-elect Trump is expected to select South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as DHS secretary – a role in which she would also oversee U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Secret Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
