Cabinet Simplicity (8)
/Tom Homan – on the straight and narrow
Well, my friends, this will not be a long treatise – nor will it meander. After the rather nauseating convolutions I’ve encountered while studying other picks for the incoming president’s cabinet, this one is as short and straight and simple as can be. Let me explain. I referred to my review of RFK, Jr.’s life as a roller coaster ride: He has done great things related to environmental protection, but he’s an anti-vaxxer and a promoter of raw milk (with its bird flu germs), has a dead worm in his brain, and espouses crazy health positions that, in my opinion, make him a downright scary pick for Health and Human Services. And remember Tulsi Gabbard? I called her a shape-shifter: a Democrat and then a Republican; a newly-elected official, and then immediate resignation to join the military; in the military, first a medical specialist, then a military police person, then a civil affairs officer; a darling of Nancy Pelosi, and then publicly criticizing the Speaker; vice-chair of the DNC and then a featured speaker at CPAC. And what of Linda McMahon, a “professional wrestler” who never taught a day in her life, suddenly poised to direct the Department of Education. Lot of questionable choices, ups and downs, unforeseen hairpin turns.
But nothing surprising about this Tom Homan, Border Czar-to be. No roller coaster, no shape shifting or gyroscope, and absolutely no diversion from one profession to another. This man is a policeman through and through, has been from Day One, and seems to have a clear, one-track mind.
Always an enforcer
This former director of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has always been an enforcer. Born a New York Catholic, he earned an associate degree in criminal justice and then a bachelor’s degree, and then he became a police officer in his hometown. At age 23 he joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service, serving as a border patrol agent, investigator, and supervisor. In 2013 President Obama elevated him to an executive position in “enforcement and removal” operations. In light of a 2015 award as a Distinguished Executive given Homan by President Obama, the Washington Post wrote, “Thomas Homan deports people, and he’s really good at it.”
Homan has been credited as the “intellectual father” of the family separation practice to discourage illegal border crossings. Wikipedia reports that he said in an interview, “Most parents don’t want to be separated,” arguing that such family separation could be a great tool for immigration enforcement. In 2018, in discussion with the policy director of the Center for Immigration Studies (“an anti-immigration think tank” founded by a “eugenicist and white nationalist”), Homan defended the separation of children from their families.
He left ICE shortly thereafter and soon testified before the House Oversight Committee about the Trump administration’s family separation policy. He’s the one who declared that a third of the women who cross the border get raped (creating lot of babies, I guess). In 2022 he was slated as a keynote speaker for the America First Political Action Conference (described by Wikipedia as “a white nationalist far-right political conference”) but left before the event’s opening, objecting to a political position of its founder, Nick Fuentes. Then he joined the Heritage Foundation and contributed to Project 2025, still focused on arrests, detentions and deportations.
In 2022, Tom Homan joined United West, termed an “anti-Muslim hate group,” to launch a project named “Defend the Border.” Just last month he held a fund raiser for the project at – where else? – Mar-a-Lago.
Always on the straight and narrow
Nope. No diversion, no loss of focus: This man has spent his lifetime with his sites on enforcement, with a bead on immigrants, and with a conviction that taking kids away from parents will be da bomb.
At a July 2024 National Conservatism Conference meeting, Homan said, if "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. They ain't seen shit yet. Wait until 2025." On July 17 at the 2024 Republican National Convention, Homan called Biden's immigration policies "national suicide" and told "millions of illegal aliens" to "start packing.”
On December 9, 2024 (just “yesterday” as I write this), Mr. Homan told Democrats to “get the hell out of the way.” Per Politico, he announced in Chicago that “the children of non-citizens would be part of the wave of deportations promised by the incoming administration. ‘When you have a child, that's on you. I'm not looking to separate families at all. That's not my goal. My goal is to enforce the law, but if you put yourself in that position, it may happen... Chicago is in trouble because your mayor sucks and your governor sucks.’” He went on to tell Democrats: “Come to the table” or “get the hell out of the way... We’re gonna be arresting a hell of a lot more people.”
What can I say? When someone tells you who he is, believe him.