Homan – an ex-policeman and former acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) director – has described immigration at the US border as “the biggest national security vulnerability this nation has seen since 9/11 and we have to fix it.”
Addressing illegal immigrants in the US during the Republican National Convention in the summer, he said: “You better start packing now.”
But it is not yet clear how his role as “border tsar” will take shape, as managing immigration involves coordination among several government agencies.
He has however, provided some ideas on how he would approach the border.
In October, prior to Trump’s election, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes he would handle deportations by prioritising “public safety threats” and “national security threats”, before moving to non-criminal migrants who are in the country illegally.
Such an approach would reverse Biden administration policies that direct Ice to focus on deporting serious criminals, national security threats and recent border crossers. The current Biden policy helps protect undocumented immigrants who have been living in the US and have not committed crimes.
Asked how deportations would be carried out, Homan said in the same October interview: “It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighbourhoods. It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”
“They’ll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ’em based on numerous… investigative processes,” he added.