President Donald Trump announced Friday that he has chosen Tom Homan, former director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service, as his “czar” for the border.
“He’s fantastic, hard (…) and smart,” the president said in an interview with Fox News, where Homan is a commentator. “I was going to announce it next week, but I better say it now,” the president said. “He’s going to be dedicated to the border, it’s what he wants to be working on,” he added.
Homan will report directly to Trump, according to the president.
The one chosen by Trump was director of the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) until last April and is considered the main executor of the deportation policy within the framework of Trump’s zero tolerance policy. In addition, he fiercely opposes the so-called sanctuary cities jurisdictions.
Homan was one of the president’s first appointments in January 2017 with the goal of deporting undocumented immigrants living in the country, regardless of whether they had a criminal record or not.
“It has been the honor of my life to be in charge of the men and women of ICE for more than a year,” he said when he left his position at ICE in a written statement. “The decision to leave federal service after more than 34 years is bittersweet, but my family has sacrificed a lot in order for me to work and now is the time to focus on them.”
Homan had been in charge of ICE as interim director until the president nominated him to lead the agency permanently last November.
He is known to have said that immigrants who are illegally in the United States “must be scared”, which earned him the rejection of pro-immigrant groups and Democratic politicians. Also for having said that he has “tough skin” by promising to multiply by four and five times the inspections and the search for undocumented workers in work places.
The harshness of his position motivated the official to face growing opposition in the Senate, which never ratified him in a hearing for his last position.
The Trump government has had great difficulty crystallizing its campaign promise to curb not only undocumented immigration but also to raise the funds needed to build a wall on the border with Mexico and regulate legal immigration.
On January 25, 2017, five days after arriving at the White House, Trump signed an executive order on the jurisdictions (sanctuary cities) and decreed that the undocumented presence constitutes a threat to the public and national security of the United States.
