By Mel Wilson, NASW Senior Policy Advisor
President-elect Donald Trump recently announced his nomination of Tom Homan — former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — to be his “border czar.” This position will be responsible for overseeing the southern and northern borders, as well as maritime and aviation security. More importantly, Homan will be responsible for deportation efforts — a central part of Trump’s agenda.
To be blunt, Homan is absolutely the wrong person to be in charge of the massive task of apprehending, detaining, and deporting over 15 million “noncitizens” (which includes as many as 3 million children). Trump is moving quickly to initiate his ill-advised mass deportation project. The complexities of mass deportation are immeasurable — especially when it comes to ensuring that those affected are treated humanely and are assured of legal due process. Therefore, the director of this program must demonstrate not only logistical management skills, but also a fundamental commitment to preserving the human and civil rights of the millions who will be directly impacted.
‘Father of Family Separation’
Therein lies the main problem with appointing Homan as the “border czar” to oversee this huge undertaking. Homan has long rejected any thoughts of a nuanced approach to border security that seriously considers or anticipates the human and social impact of mass deportation. On the contrary, his past role as a line border enforcement officer and as an ICE administrator demonstrated the degree to which he embraced a hardline, zero-tolerance approach to border enforcement, with little regard for the physical and mental consequences to those affected.
Indeed, to many, he is seen as being stridently hostile to migrants and noncitizens who are present in the U.S. This is evidenced by his widely denounced position on family separation — a policy position for which he earned the label “father of family separation,” which predates Trump’s 2016 anti-migrant program.
Another deeply problematic aspect of Homan’s antagonism toward noncitizens is his fervent belief that the non-violent act of crossing the U.S. without documents — regardless of whether one is an asylum seeker or an unaccompanied migrant child — is an offense that justifies expedited removal without due process.
Much of that thinking emerges from a 2005 initiative called Operation Streamline, in which Homan was a participant. During this operation, many thousands of noncitizens were removed from U.S. soil expeditiously, using criminalization as the main justification for the action — as opposed to going through immigration courts.
In addition to the aggressive tactics used by ICE to apprehend targeted individuals and families, Operation Streamline denied apprehended migrants a meaningful opportunity to present their individual claims for asylum and other forms of relief. Ignoring such consequences of the 2005 initiative, Homan continues to insist on applying Operation Streamline-like procedures and processes as part of implementing Trump’s planned mass deportation.
History has shown us that mass deportation is not the answer for establishing border security — especially when it involves removing noncitizens who have lived here for decades and separating children from their parents.
Unfortunately, President-elect Trump has made this a “day one” priority, and he will likely move forward with mass deportation. That said, his appointment of Tom Homan to lead that effort will only exacerbate an already bad decision.
For more information about Mass Deportation and its implications for social work, read Mel Wilson’s Practice Alert on the subject, Near Certain Cataclysmic Consequences of a Mass Deportation Program
And Listen to the NASW Social Work Talks Podcast: Mass Deportation: Unjust and Harmful to the Nation Wendy Cervantes, Director of Immigration and Immigrant Families at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).
