President Donald Trump introduced that his border czar, Tom Homan, will go to Minneapolis this week following the deadly capturing of an ICU nurse Saturday within the metropolis that has grow to be the epicenter of opposition to the president’s controversial immigration crackdown.
Here’s what to learn about Homan forward of his arrival within the Twin Cities.
Homan, 64, began his profession in 1984 as a Border Patrol agent earlier than shifting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2003 when the company was created as a part of Homeland Safety. He was a comparatively low-key however influential determine on immigration enforcement within the Obama administration, heading ICE’s Enforcement and Removing Operations arm, which was tasked with monitoring down folks with excellent deportation orders and eradicating them from the nation.
Regardless of unwavering enthusiasm for Trump and withering criticism of President Joe Biden, he’s seen by some as a voice of restraint and moderation in contrast with some within the present administration.
Homan, who’s extensively related to immigration enforcement actions that separated households, was given a Presidential Rank Award by the Obama administration to tout his efficacy in 2015.
Homan was at his retirement get together in January 2017 when Trump’s selection for homeland safety secretary, John Kelly, requested him to remain at ICE. Homan accepted after taking a weekend to consider it and have become a number one determine within the Trump administration by means of 4 tumultuous years.
Below Obama, the U.S. carried out 432,000 deportations in 2013, the best annual whole since information had been saved. Deportations underneath the primary Trump administration by no means topped 350,000.
When he was appointed border czar, Homan was seen as a frontrunner who not solely aligned with Trump ideologically, however who additionally had important sensible expertise in immigration coverage.
In an look on Fox Information’ “Sunday Morning Futures” in 2024, Homan promised to focus on — at the very least initially — folks posing a danger to public security and pushed again on strategies that the U.S. navy can be aiding to find and deporting immigrants.
“You focus on the general public security threats and the nationwide safety threats first, as a result of they’re the worst of the worst,” he stated on the present. He additionally stated ICE would transfer to implement Trump’s plans in a “humane method.”
On a separate “60 Minutes” interview earlier than the 2024 presidential elections, Homan known as strategies of mass neighborhood raids or constructing camps to carry folks “ridiculous.”
When requested whether or not there was a method to perform deportations with out separating households, he stated, “Households might be deported collectively.”
There are numerous current examples throughout the nation of arrests that do not align with these priorities. In Minnesota, The Related Press has reported on how ICE brokers have detained folks with authorized immigration standing and no legal information, kids and U.S. residents.
The White Home stood behind Homan in September following reviews that he accepted $50,000 from undercover brokers posing as businesspeople throughout an FBI operation, resulting in a bribery investigation that was in the end shut down by Trump’s Justice Division.
Homan was accused of accepting the money throughout a 2024 encounter with brokers posing as businesspeople searching for authorities contracts that Homan urged he may assist them get in a second Trump time period.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterised Homan’s encounter with the undercover brokers as an effort by the Biden administration to “entrap one of many president’s prime allies and supporters, somebody who they knew very nicely can be taking a authorities place.”
