Tom Homan, the 63-year-old border czar that President Donald Trump dispatched to Minnesota, built his enforcement reputation under a Democratic administration. Between 2013 and 2016, Homan's team at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed more than 920,000 people from the United States.
That record earned him the 2015 Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service from Barack Obama, the highest honour a career civil servant can receive. At the time, The Washington Post described him as someone who 'deports people. And he's really good at it'.
Small-Town Cop to Federal Enforcer
Homan was born on 28 November 1961 in West Carthage, New York. His father and grandfather both served as police officers in the same town, establishing a family pattern in law enforcement.
Homan spent the next three decades moving through immigration enforcement. He worked as a Border Patrol agent in California and Arizona for five years, then supervised operations on the Texas-Mexico border in 2003. By 2013, Obama had appointed him executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations at ICE, making him the first director to have come up through the ranks.
The Obama Years
Homan's three years running ICE enforcement operations produced large removal figures. In fiscal year 2013 alone, his team removed more than 325,000 people classified as criminal aliens, with 40 per cent convicted of aggravated felonies or multiple felonies. Between 2013 and 2016, his Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) unit arrested and removed 534,000 criminal aliens.
When unaccompanied children began crossing the Southwest border in 2014, Homan managed the response. His team transferred more than 55,000 children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a 145 per cent increase from the previous year. Federal law required ICE to hand over these children within 72 hours, and Homan ensured compliance.
The Family Separation Idea
In 2014, still under the Obama administration, Homan began advocating for the idea that separating children from parents would deter illegal crossings. Journalist Caitlin Dickerson later described him as the 'intellectual father' of family separation, saying he promoted the policy years before Trump adopted it.
'Most parents don't want to be separated', Homan told Dickerson. 'I'd be lying to you if I didn't think that would have an effect.' When Trump appointed him acting ICE director in January 2017, Homan pushed the policy further. In April 2018, he and Kevin McAleenan urged Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to implement Zero Tolerance, which meant prosecuting parents and removing their children. More than 5,500 children were separated from their parents in 2018.
Married to His High School Girlfriend
Away from the headlines, Homan's been with the same woman for over 40 years. He married Elizabeth in 1980 after they met in high school back in West Carthage. She worked as a flight attendant for American Airlines before staying home after their second child was born. They have four children together.
Homan describes himself as a lifelong Catholic and attends Mass regularly. He has publicly disagreed with Pope Francis on immigration policy. When the Pope criticised border enforcement, Homan responded: 'I wish he'd stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us. He's got a wall around the Vatican, does he not?'
Picture 2016 under Obama, CNN’s coverage of ICE agents in Chicago, showing them removing illegal immigrants to ‘make the community safer’. No outrage, just straight reporting on their mission.
— ConservativeKay1.0 (@kay_dub_h) January 17, 2026
2015, Barack Obama honored ICE leader Tom Homan with the Presidential Rank Award for… pic.twitter.com/8Oli5lLrcH
From Retirement to Border Czar
Homan left ICE in June 2018 after the White House did not push his nomination through the Senate. He joined Fox News as a contributor and later signed on with the Heritage Foundation in 2022, where he contributed to Project 2025, a blueprint that calls for mass arrests and deportations of people in the country illegally.
At the Republican National Convention last year, Homan delivered a message to immigrants in the country illegally: 'You better start packing now. 'Cause you're going home'. He promised the largest deportation operation in US history. Trump appointed him border czar in November 2024, a role that does not require Senate approval.
Trump deployed Homan to Minnesota after two US citizens were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis within three weeks. The assignment aims to stabilise the situation while maintaining enforcement pressure. Homan holds something many Trump officials do not: bipartisan credentials, having received the government's highest career award from Obama for the same work Democrats now criticise him for under Trump.
