Trump names US ‘border czar’ to oversee migrant deportations
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked Thomas Homan, his one-time acting immigration chief, to serve as “border czar” and fulfill his campaign vow to deport large numbers of undocumented migrants, potentially millions, back to their home countries.
Trump said on his Truth Social media platform late Sunday that the 62-year-old Homan would be “in charge of our Nation’s Borders,” south to Mexico and north to Canada. He added that he has “no doubt” that Homan “will do a fantastic, and long-awaited for, job.”
“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump wrote.
Trump is also set to appoint another immigration hard-liner, Stephen Miller, as deputy chief of staff for policy, U.S. news media reported.
“This is another fantastic pick by the president,” Vice President-elect JD Vance said of the prospect of Miller joining Trump’s nascent administration.
In another appointment, Trump named one of his staunchest Republican advocates in Congress, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, to serve as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, calling her “an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”
Stefanik, 40, arrived in the House of Representatives in 2015 as a political moderate but over time has emerged as a vocal Trump defender.
She drew national attention last year for her sharp questioning of Ivy League university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of student protests against Israel’s conduct of its war on Hamas militants. Two of the academics, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, stepped down in the fallout from the hearing.
Homan’s appointment as “border czar” does not require Senate confirmation. He served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, from January 2017 to June 2018 during Trump’s first presidential term but left in frustration when the White House failed to push his nomination toward the required confirmation in the Senate.
Homan, a former police officer and Border Patrol agent, subsequently became a Fox News analyst on immigration and border issues.
Hours after his appointment, Homan on Monday told the “Fox & Friends” show: “I’ve been on this network for years complaining about what [President Joe Biden’s] administration did to this border. I’ve been yelling and screaming about it and what they need to do to fix it.”
“So, when [Trump] asked me, ‘Would you come back and fix it?’ Of course. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t,” he said. “I’m honored the president asked me to come back and help solve this national security crisis, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Trump recaptured the White House in last week’s election after repeatedly telling thousands of his supporters at campaign rallies that he would round up undocumented migrants in the U.S. – perhaps 11 million or more – and send them back to their home countries.
“We’re going to have to seal up those borders,” Trump often said, claiming that other countries had emptied their prisons and mental health hospitals so migrants could flee to the U.S. He said the migrants in the U.S. are now causing a crime wave. Government statistics show that no such massive increase in crime has occurred.
VOA
