"Be afraid"
Who is Donald Trump’s new border czar Tom Homan?
Tom is involved with the Heritage Foundation, which authored Project 2025
THOMAS Douglas Home is an immigration official who has worked for both President Obama and President Trump.
The controversial official, who previously told illegal immigrants to "be afraid", has been chosen by Trump to serve as his border czar in his second administration.
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Early career
Tom was born in West Carthage, New York, and graduated from Jefferson Community College with an associate degree in Criminal Justice.
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Polytechnic Institute, he began serving as a police officer.
In 1984, he joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service which was later broken up into three different agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
President Barack Obama appointed him as ICE's executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations in 2013.
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Just a year later, Tom began to argue that children should be separated from their parents when they cross the border to deter immigrants from trying to enter the USA.
Despite his statements, he was handed a Presidential Rank Award by Barack Obama in 2015.
From Obama to Trump
On January 30, 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Tom as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In May that same year, Tom announced that ICE had arrested 41,319 people between inauguration day and April 2017.
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He then declared that illegal immigrants “should be afraid”.
In April 2018, he took his position one step further.
He advised the Secretary of Homeland Security to implement a zero tolerance policy on immigration, which would result in the prosecution of parents and the breaking up of families.
Just two months later, he decided to retire from his position but he has remained active in politics.
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The Heritage Foundation
Tom joined the Heritage Foundation in 2022 and contributed to Project 2025, its wish lift for a Trump presidency.
Project 2025 supports:
- The entire federal bureaucracy, including the Department of Justice, being placed under presidential control.
- The elimination of visa categories for crime and human trafficking victims.
- Increased funding for Donald Trump’s border wall.
- The dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security to create a tougher force.
- Increased fees on immigrants.
- Slashing federal spending on renewable energy.
- A ban on pornography.
- A ban on the terms “sexual orientation”, “reproductive rights” and “abortion” from laws and federal regulations.
- Withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market.
- The Department of Health and Human Services taking a "biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family".
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Trump 2.0
On November 10, 2024, Trump announced that he was nominating Tom for the role of border czar in his second administration.
Immigration was one of Trump's campaign themes and is one of the leading issues for voters in America.
During his debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Trump suggested that immigrants were eating cats and dogs who belonged to the citizens of Springfield, Ohio.
Trump has also said that he plans to deport millions of illegal immigrants despite the enormous amount of money that this would cost.
However, just months before Trump's victory, Tom had already said that he was planning to run the “biggest deportation force this country had ever seen”.
Tom is one of the least surprising appointments by Trump, who has handed a government job to tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk will head up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which hopes to slim down the government.
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The acronym DOGE is a reference to Musk's favourite cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which is named after an internet meme.
Trump has also nominated Tulsi Gabbard to become the Director of National Intelligence, despite criticism of her stance of Syria and Ukraine.
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