President-elect Donald Trump is expected to rehire Tom Homan, who led ICE between 2017 and 2018, for his mass deportation program.
Homan was considered a controversial figure for his no-nonsense approach to immigration and, in particular, for presiding over the so-called “family-separation” policy, which saw illegal immigrant families held apart and removed from the country separately.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his enthusiasm to bring Homan back. In a radio interview during the campaign, the president-elect said, “He’s coming on board.”
It’s not clear what precise role Homan would play, but there can be no doubt that he would be intimately involved in what Trump has called “the largest deportation operation in American history,” which will be carried out at the federal and local levels and invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Homan has made clear his support for Trump’s immigration plans and promised that they will be unlike anything the country has ever carried out before. In an interview over the summer, he said Trump’s opponents “ain’t seen sh*t yet… Wait until 2025.”
When asked in a recent interview with 60 Minutes whether mass deportation would require family separation, Homan suggested it “needs to be considered absolutely.”
“Their parent absolutely entered the country illegally, had a child knowing he was in the country illegally,” Homan explained. “So he created that crisis.”
Homan’s tone on immigration has hardened further in recent years.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing about the family separation,” he said at a conference last year. “I’m still being sued over that.”
“I don’t give a sh*t, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.”