According to the Dallas Morning News, Donald Trump has asked acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Thomas Homan to permanently lead the agency, a move that will require Senate hearings and confirmation. Trump’s decision shouldn’t come as any surprise. Along with former Department of Homeland Security secretary and current White House chief of staff John Kelly, Homan has proven to be a devastatingly effective mass deportation accomplice:
- What “bad hombres”? During the first five months of Trump’s administration, the arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record under Homan’s watch surged 156 percent compared to that same period the previous year.
- In June, Homan justified arresting those immigrant moms and dads by saying that “if you’re in this country illegally, you should be uncomfortable … you should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried.”
- A loyal foot soldier in Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s ongoing war on immigrants and the cities that care about them, Homan’s ICE intentionally targeted so-called sanctuary cities with raids. Around one-third of the immigrants swept up by agents had no criminal record at all.
- Homan then doubled down on terrorizing hardworking immigrant parents by promising to increase workplaces immigration raids by "four to five times.”
Under Homan, ICE agents have tested the power of their limits, flouting longstanding ICE policy against conducting arrests in sensitive locations like schools and churches. Weeks after Trump’s poorly-attended inauguration, agents stalked and arrested a group of immigrant men as they left a church-run hypothermia shelter in Virginia.
Homan is also as vindictive and petty as his boss, promising to escalate arrests in California because Gov. Jerry Brown signed sweeping, anti-deportation legislation. So much for states’ rights:
- Homan perpetuated a fake story from Breitbart that an immigrant man was to blame for the deadly California wildfires that killed dozens of Americans and left many more homeless.
- Homan has shown himself to be a “yes” man, standing down as Kelly ordered Homan’s ICE agents to portray the immigrants they were sweeping up—many of whom had no criminal record—as dangerous, emails show.
- Under Homan, ICE agents have arrested a nurse, pastor, and an undocumented youth on the same day as his prom. They abandoned immigrant mothers and kids at a bus station in the middle of a hurricane, illegally entered homes without a warrant, allegedly harassed the U.S. citizen children of an undocumented mom who went into sanctuary, stalked immigrants at court, used children as bait to arrest undocumented family members, detained pregnant immigrant women, racially profiled a brown U.S. citizen they thought was undocumented, colluded with Motel 6 employees to arrest immigrant guests, arrested the parent of U.S. military veteran, and arrested Dreamers despite having valid Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections.
- And under Homan’s tenure, undocumented immigrants have died while under ICE detention.
The ICE deportation machine isn’t new, but Donald Trump—with the assistance of the likes of John Kelly, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the ghoulish Stephen Miller, and Thomas Homan—has turned it into a cruel, merciless, and evil monster. And that’s precisely why Trump is keeping him put. “Given Homan’s viciously anti-immigrant record,” America’s Voice noted, “it’s no surprise that one of the leading anti-immigrant hate groups is giddy about this nomination. But the US Senate shouldn’t be.”