Trump brings back ‘Father of Family Separation’ as his ‘Border Czar’

Just days after his election as the 47th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump made an announcement on his alt tech social media platform, TRUTH

According to the post, Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will oversee the country’s borders “including, but not limited to, the Southern Border, the Northern Border, all Maritime, and Aviation Security”. The President-elect shared that he had known Homan for a long time, and “there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders”.

“Homan will also be in charge of all ‘Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin’. Homan worked for a year and a half in Trump’s first term as acting director of ICE and is also a contender for the secretary of homeland security, according to Reuters.

Homan has been a strong advocate for Trump’s immigration policies. Border security was a strong point of Trump’s first presidency, and it was a stalwart during both his 2020 and 2024 campaigns.

During Homan’s run as acting director of ICE, the number of immigrants arrested in 2017 went up by almost 40% compared to the year before.

Who is Tom Homan?

Homan, 62, is a former police officer who lives in Washington DC.

Before Trump, Homan was the head of the ICE branch that arrested and deported the most immigrants. According to a 2016 profile on Homan in the Washington Post, “Thomas Homan deports people. And he’s really good at it.” Homan reportedly keeps a framed copy of the story in his office.

During Trump’s administration, Homan became known as the brains behind Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy which separates thousands of children from their parents at the border – more than 1300 are still separated from their families.

According to The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington based think tank, under the Trump administration, the “zero tolerance policy” shifted from treating illegal immigration as a civil matter to prosecuting it as a criminal offence.

Previously, most apprehended immigrants were placed in civil removal proceedings rather than facing criminal charges. While past administrations typically deported offenders, the zero-tolerance approach prosecutes them, including parents and children, under criminal statutes.

Charging parents criminally for crossing the border leads to family separations, as children cannot be held in criminal detention facilities. Instead, they are placed with the Department of Health and Human Services until a relative or guardian can care for them.

Unlike previous policies, this approach applies broadly, resulting in a large-scale separation of families at the border.

Homan first floated the idea back when Barack Obama was President as an extreme measure to deal with the 2014 migrant family crisis. The secretary of Homeland Security rejected this proposal then.

Talking about the zero-tolerance policy in an interview with The Atlantic, he said: “Most parents don’t want to be separated. I’d be lying to you if I didn’t think that would have an effect.”

Homan has repeatedly ignored or shown his indifference to the human cost of this policy. In an interview with 60 Minutes, he was asked a question about the possibility of mass deportations without separating families, he responded: “Of course there is, families can be deported together”.

Homan recently described the US border as “the biggest national security vulnerability this nation has seen since 9/11, and we have to fix it.”

This July, Homan spoke at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, and expressed frustration at the news coverage of a mass deportation operation. Talking about why the American government needed to prioritise national security threats, he said: He added: “Trump comes back in January. I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

What is ICE and why is there a controversy?

ICE was created in 2003 during the Bush administration. It was essentially a merger of several agencies under the Department of Homeland Security after the 9/11 attacks.

ICE is responsible for Enforcement and Removal Operations—finding, detaining, and deporting undocumented immigrants already inside the US. Unlike Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ICE does not handle border security or family separations at the border, which CBP oversees under the “zero tolerance” policy.

Under President Trump, ICE’s role was expanded, with a 2017 executive order adding 10,000 staff and increasing immigration enforcement.

This expansion has led to controversy, with some ICE agents arguing that the focus on undocumented immigrants hinders Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s unit focused on tackling major crimes like drug and human trafficking.

Experts hired by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties reviewed more than two dozen ICE detention facilities across 16 states from 2017 to 2019. Their findings revealed "negligent" medical and mental health care, "unsafe and filthy" conditions, instances of racist abuse, and improper use of pepper spray on mentally ill detainees. These issues reportedly contributed to detainee deaths in some cases, according to NPR.

Last year, nearly 3,000 immigrants whose personal information was inadvertently posted online by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were released.

The breach, which occurred in November 2022, exposed the names, birthdates, nationalities, and detention locations of 6,252 individuals seeking asylum from torture and persecution.

Advocacy groups condemned the disclosure, warning it could endanger those affected.

ICE claimed it will not deport any affected individuals before they can address the issue in immigration court, although over 100 were deported before the breach was discovered.