| Homan repeatedly emphasized his plan to conduct the largest deportation efforts the country has ever seen if Trump was reelected. He publicly threatened undocumented immigrants several times claiming they should be looking over their shoulders and told them to “start packing now.” Homan suggested ICE would conduct workplace raids to capture undocumented immigrants in high volumes. He also claimed to execute his plan he would need more funding from Congress to pay for at least 100,000 detention beds. |
Homan: “I Will Run The Biggest Deportation Force This Country Has Ever Seen.” According to Newsweek, "And Homan appears to be totally on message with the President-elect in this area, telling a panel on immigration policy in July: ‘Trump comes back in January; I'll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.’" [Newsweek, 11/12/24]
Homan: “If You’re In The Country Illegally, You Need To Be Looking Over Your Shoulder.” According to the Washington Times, "In a lengthy appearance with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, where he worked as a senior fellow, he said illegal immigrants would be better off if they leave on their own. But if they don’t, they are all targets for deportation, even if they’re not the top priority. ‘If you’re in the country illegally, you need to be looking over your shoulder because you’re not supposed to be here, and we’ll eventually get to you,’ he said." [Washington Times, 12/18/24]
At The 2024 Republican National Convention, Homan Told Undocumented Immigrants “You Better Start Packing Now.” According to CBS News, "At the Republican National Convention this summer… Tom Homan, a Fox News contributor, was the proud pitchman of mass deportation… Tom Homan speaking at the RNC: I got a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden's released in our country. You better start packing now." [CBS News, 10/27/24]
Homan Said Congress Would Have To Provide Funding For More Detention Beds Because His Plan Would Include Detaining Immigrants For Several Days Or Weeks. According to ABC News, "‘Congress is going to have to give a massive amount of detention beds,’ he said. ICE's current funding allows for less than 50,000 beds -- and though ICE has long relied on privately-run detention facilities to help house migrants, that multimillion-dollar business could grow under Trump's expected enforcement expansion. Homan has said ICE may have to detain some migrants for as long as several weeks. ‘What people don't understand is we can't just put [them on] a plane,’ he said. ‘There's a process we have to go through. You have to contact the country, they have to agree to accept them, then they got to send you travel documents. And that takes several days to several weeks. So we need detention assets.’" [ABC News, 11/18/24]
Homan Claimed He Needed 100,000 Beds For Immigrant Detention. According to The Source with Kaitlan Collins, "COLLINS: So you haven't gotten any briefings from people at the Department of Homeland Security, right now, to tell you what that looks like, as far as the number of ICE agents, or the number of beds available to you? HOMAN: No, I know the current number of beds available. I know how many agents are there, right now. But I'm looking, we need many more detention beds, more than currently available. I mean, under the Trump administration, we had over 55,000 people in detention, at any given day. And they're down to less than 30,000 now. So, I know there's a certain amount of beds that are available. But we're going to need many more beds. The landing teams have just started working with the agencies and departments. We will be gathering information, a lot of information, next couple weeks, which will help me in my planning process. COLLINS: How many more beds do you think you'll need? HOMAN: We need at least a 100,000 beds. And because if beds were turned over in 30 days, which gives us free -- our free bed every day. But I'm not going to put a limit. I'm telling the minimum, we need 100,000 beds, because we got a big population to look for." [Twitter, Kaitlan Collins, 12/18/24] (video) 00:01:01
Homan Claimed Mass Deportations Would Likely Include “Work-Site Enforcement Operations.” According to CBS News, "HOMAN: He-- I-- I don't use the term ‘raids,’ but you're probably talking about work-site enforcement operations-- which this administration pretty much stopped. INTERVIEWER: Workplace enforcement, that's a roundup. HOMAN: And that's gonna be necessary. Work-site enforcement operations just not about people who's working illegally in the country and companies that hire 'em that's gonna undercut their competition that has U.S. citizen employees. It's where we find a lot of trafficking cases you know, women and children who are forced into forced labor to pay off their smuggling fees." [CBS News, 10/27/24]
| Homan helped develop the concept of family separation to deter illegal immigration with the first Trump administration. He signed onto a 2018 memo suggesting Trump instituted a “zero tolerance” policy, which meant ICE would immediately arrest and prosecute adults who were found crossing the border, separating them from their children. When family separation became a big controversy facing Trump’s team, Homan said he was “sick and tired” of hearing about it and that he “didn’t give a s***.” Homan confirmed in a CNN interview that he planned to separate families once again as part of the second Trump administration’s mass deportation plan. |
Homan Was The “Father” Of The Trump Family-Separation Policy Applied During His First Term As A Method Of Deterring Illegal Immigration. According to The Atlantic, "Homan said he wanted to apply the perceived lessons of Operation Streamline to migrant families, by prosecuting parents who crossed the border illegally with their children. Though many of these families came to the U.S. seeking asylum, under this new model they would be treated as criminals. Homan explained that the parents would be taken into federal criminal custody, just like with Operation Streamline—only this time the process would trigger an automatic family separation. This is the earliest instance I’ve discovered of family separation being proposed as a way to deter migration to the United States. This makes Tom Homan the father of what might be the Trump administration’s most controversial policy. ‘Most parents don’t want to be separated,’ Homan told me recently. ‘I’d be lying to you if I didn’t think that would have an effect.’ Homan acknowledged that many people would think him evil for proposing the idea, but he said it was intended to help families, not hurt them." [Atlantic, 8/7/22]
Under Trump’s First Administration, Homan Was In Charge Of Executing A “Zero Tolerance” Policy Which Involved Immediately Prosecuting Adults Found Illegally Crossing The Border And Separating Them From Their Kids. According to Forbes, "Homan is best-known for his role in a ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy under Trump that moved to immediately prosecute anyone found crossing the border illegally and saw parents detained while their children were taken and placed separately in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement." [Forbes, 11/11/24]
Homan Signed A Memo In 2018 Suggesting The Trump Administration Began Prosecuting Parents Crossing The Border With Their Families. According to ABC News, "In April 2018, when the first Trump administration was still developing its ‘zero tolerance’ approach to illegal immigration, Homan and two counterparts in other agencies signed a memo recommending that, among other potential measures, the Trump administration should seriously consider prosecuting ‘all amenable adults’ crossing the border illegally, including parents crossing with their families. ‘[It] would likely have the most effective impact,’ the memo said." [ABC News, 11/18/24]
Homan Said He “Didn’t Give A S***” About Family Separation Controversy, Said He Was “Sick And Tired” Of Hearing About It, And Remarked That Families Could Be Deported Together To Avoid Separation. According to Newsweek, "Homan also spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he said he did not care about the family separation controversy. ‘I'm sick and tired of hearing about the family separation,’ Homan said. ‘I'm still being sued over that.’ He added, ‘I don't give a s***, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.’ […] When pressed on if there is a way to conduct a mass deportation plan without family separation, Tom Homan said, ‘Of course there is. Families can be deported together.’" [Newsweek, 11/12/24]
Homan Said He Planned To Arrest Undocumented Immigrants Regardless Of Whether They Have A Child Who Is A U.S. Citizen, And That It Was Up To The Parent To Decide What Would Happen To Their Child. According to The Source with Kaitlan Collins, "COLLINS: As you know, there's a lot of mixed status households in the United States. Do you plan to take both parents into custody, if there are minor children in the house? HOMAN: If you're in the country illegally, and you got order to be -- deportation, we're going to arrest you, we're going to detain you, and we're going to remove you. If they have a U.S. citizen child, if they -- if they chose, after they come to the country illegally, and chose after they've been ordered to remove, to have a U.S. citizen child, and think, OK, the -- the court order doesn't mean anything anymore? The removal order doesn't mean anything anymore? […] We can't send a message to the whole world that you can violate laws of this country, and not leave as required by judges, and have a U.S. citizen child, you're OK. That child can stay. They can stay with a relative. They can stay with the other parent, or they can take them with them. We don't port -- we don't deport U.S. citizens. But they put themselves in the position. We didn't. COLLINS: But would the kids go -- if both parents, though, are deported, would you put the children in foster care, if there's not a relative? Child Protective Services? What does that look like? HOMAN: Well, that's up to the parent. I call that Parenting 101. It's up to the parent what they want to do. It's their child. But the bottom line is, having a child in this country does not make you immune from our laws." [Twitter, Kaitlan Collins, 12/19/24] (video)
| Homan said on a podcast that he was against birthright citizenship, which is mandated in the 14th Amendment. Legal scholars argued birthright citizenship cannot be changed without amending the Constitution. |
Homan Said He Wanted To End Birthright Citizenship. According to ABC News, "Homan has echoed that sentiment, saying on a podcast last year, ‘One thing that we're going to have this president do ... [is] end birthright citizenship.’ Both Homan and Trump have said ending birthright citizenship will also put an end to so-called ‘birth tourism,’ when pregnant women from overseas travel to the United States so they can give birth on U.S. soil and ensure their new child is granted U.S. citizenship." [ABC News, 11/18/24]
| Homan was a contributor to Project 2025 and was reportedly involved in the “developing and writing” of the document. Though he did not directly author the section on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, he was likely a key advisor of those policy proposals that call for eliminating Temporary Protected Status and visas for victims of crime, among other right-wing ideas. |
Homan Contributed to Project 2025. According to CNN, “Project 2025’s proposals for reforming the country’s immigration laws appear heavily influenced by those who helped execute Trump’s early enforcement measures. Former acting US Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan – the faces of Trump’s polarizing policies – contributed to the project, as did Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, one of the policy advisers pushing to end certain immigrant protections behind the scenes. The Project 2025 chapter on overhauling the Department of Homeland Security was written by Ken Cuccinelli, a top official at the department under Trump.” [CNN, 7/11/24]
Homan Was Involved In The Developing And Writing Of Project 2025. According to ABC News, "Homan, who is expected to be in charge of the mass deportations promised by the Trump campaign, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025 who assisted in its ‘development and writing.’" [ABC News, 12/9/24]
Project 2025 Proposed Creating A Cabinet-Level Immigration Agency That Would Be The Third-Largest Executive Department By Manpower. According to Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise published by Project 2025, “Our primary recommendation is that the President pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After 20 years, it has not gelled into ‘One DHS.’ Instead, its various components’ different missions have outweighed its decades-long attempt to function as one department, rendering the whole disjointed rather than cohesive. Breaking up the department along its mission lines would facilitate mission focus and provide opportunities to reduce overhead and achieve more limited government. In lieu of a status quo DHS, we recommend that: l U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be combined with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR); and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) into a standalone border and immigration agency at the Cabinet level (more than 100,000 employees, making it the third largest department measured by manpower).” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, 2023]
Project 2025 Called For Eliminating The Visas Provide Legal Status To Victims Of Crimes. According to Axios, “The plan calls for the elimination of T and U visas, which provide legal status to victims of certain criminal activities who have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse, and to victims of human trafficking who assist law enforcement in their investigations. The outline also states that ICE should halt its ‘current cozy deference’ for educational institution and work with the Department of State to ‘eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations.’” [Axios, 11/8/24]
Project 2025 Called For Eliminating Repealing Temporary Protected Status. According to , “Repealing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations is also a demand in Project 2025. That would impact nearly 1.2 million people who are either receiving or eligible for TPS.” [Axios, 11/8/24]
Project 2025 Proposed Having More Political Appointees Under The Secretary Of Homeland Security To “Help Ensure The Completion Of The Next President’s Agenda.” According to Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise published by Project 2025, “The Secretary of Homeland Security is a presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed political appointee, but for budgetary reasons, he or she has historically been unable to fund a dedicated team of political appointees. A key first step for the Secretary to improve front-office functions is to have his or her own dedicated team of political appointees selected and vetted by the Office of Presidential Personnel, which is not reliant on detailees from other parts of the department, to help ensure the completion of the next President’s agenda.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, 2023]
Project 2025 Proposed The Department Of Homeland Security Having A “Politically Oriented Line Of Succession For Agency Decision-Making Purposes.” According to Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise published by Project 2025, “Based on previous experience, the department needs legislation to establish a more durable but politically oriented line of succession for agency decision-making purposes. The ideal sequence for line of succession is certainly debatable, except that in circumstances where a career employee holds a leadership position in the department, that position should be deemed vacant for line-of-succession purposes and the next eligible political appointee in the sequence should assume acting authority. Further, individuals wielding acting Secretary authority should have explicit authority to finalize agency actions, including regulations, to ensure that the department’s homeland security mission is fulfilled.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, 2023]