President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Tom Homan, his former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to serve as the incoming administration’s “border czar.”

The position, which does not require Senate confirmation, puts Homan in charge of the nation’s borders and maritime and aviation security.

“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” the president-elect wrote, adding that he is confident Homan will do “a fantastic, and long-awaited for, job.”

He started his law enforcement career as a police officer in New York state. He then worked for 33 years in immigration enforcement, starting as a Border Patrol agent in Campo, California, in 1984.

Homan went on to spend 20 years as a special agent investigating the organizations that smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States, working under the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service before it became the Department of Homeland Security.

He rose through the ranks of ICE to lead the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations under President Barack Obama for eight years before his appointment as acting ICE director under Trump.

ICE sits under the Department of Homeland Security and is tasked with cross-border crime, human trafficking, deportations, and more.

The agency has two main branches under it: Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Just three days prior, he was leaving his retirement party from the agency when he received word that Trump wanted him to lead the agency.

“I actually retired on Jan. 27 for about three hours. On the way out of the ceremony, I got a call from General [John] Kelly [saying] that the president would like me to stay and run the agency,” Homan said at an October 2017 event.

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“The decision to leave federal service after more than 34 years is bittersweet, but my family has sacrificed a lot in order for me to serve, and it’s time for me to focus on them,” Homan said at the time.

“Tom Homan’s coming back,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” in a June 2019 interview.

“He’s going to be very much involved with the border. That’s what he really wants to be involved with.”

The 45th president said that Homan would report directly to him and would “probably be working out of the White House, but also spending a lot of time at the border.”

Homan ultimately did not return. Instead, he became a Fox News contributor and a visiting fellow with The Heritage Foundation. In 2021, he launched his own consulting company. He also leads Border911, a nonprofit that aims to educate the public about border security.

“If you’ve seen what Tom Homan has seen in 33 years, you would understand my emotion when we talk about this issue,” he said during a 2017 event.

Homan held back tears as he recounted a 2003 case in Victoria, Texas, where 19 smuggled illegal immigrants died in the back of a tractor trailer.

“The crime scene was kept secure until I got there. I actually walked into the back of that tractor trailer. I was surrounded by 19 dead aliens laying around me, that suffocated in the back of the tractor trailer—one, a 5-year-old boy. That haunts me to this day, because I had a 5-year-old boy at the time,” Homan said.

“What do you think that 5-year-old child went through in the last 30 minutes of his life? What do you think the father, who was holding that child, went through the last 30 minutes of his life, knowing he put his child in that position and couldn’t change it? And they suffocated to death in this black, hot tractor trailer.

“These smugglers don’t care, they’re out to make a buck. They don’t care about the health and safety and well-being of these people.”

An outcry over ICE gained steam in 2018 after the Trump administration called for all adult illegal border-crossers to be prosecuted, in line with a “zero tolerance” application of the law. This led to the separation of illegal immigrant children from the adults they crossed the border with.

“Have you ever held a deceased child in your arms?”

Homan bristled at the congressman’s comments, calling them “disgusting.”

“I’ve served my country for 34 years, and yes, I held a 5-year-old boy in my arms ... and I knelt down beside him and said a prayer for him because I knew what the last 30 minutes of his life were like. And I had a 5-year-old son at the time,” Homan said.

“What I’ve been trying to do my 34 years serving my nation is to save lives. So for you to sit there and insult my integrity and my love for my country and for children, that’s why this whole thing needs to be fixed. And you’re a member of Congress—fix it!”

Homan defended the zero tolerance policy by pointing out that when American adults are arrested and jailed for breaking the law, they too are separated from their children.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security also noted that the policy served to protect child trafficking victims smuggled across the border by unrelated adults.

Some sanctuaries, such as in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, forbid immigration agents from going into jails to interview and take custody of convicted criminal immigrants. The criminals are instead released back into the community.

“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Homan said. “Every criminal alien that gets released by a sanctuary city that reoffends, has committed a crime that’s preventable.

“Even immigrant communities don’t want criminals in their communities.”

Proponents of sanctuary policies say that the policies promote trust in immigrant communities and, therefore, immigrants will come forward to report crimes—purportedly making the community safer.

But Homan said his agents—and the community—are put at greater risk if ICE is forced to locate and arrest illegal immigrants in communities, rather than take custody of them in a jail.

“What you have done is force my hand and now I have to go to their homes. When I go into the home and find that bad guy, he’s probably going to have other people with him, who may have immigration issues. My job is to take them into custody, too,” he said.

Homan said ICE has a “sensitive location” policy, which precludes agents from arresting illegal immigrants at churches, schools, and hospitals without prior approval from headquarters. “And it has to be a significant public safety issue and national security issue to do that,” he said.

He said sanctuary cities entice more illegal immigrants to enter the United States and hide out in those cities.

Homan said the United States spends billions each year on border security, detention, immigration courts, attorneys, and appeals courts.

“And at the end, if a judge issues a final order, they need to be executed. Because if they’re not, there’s absolutely no integrity in this entire system,” he said.

“People say we’re racist and white supremacist—we removed people to over 140 countries last year.

Speaking at the Republican National Convention in July, he issued a warning to illegal immigrants: “You’d better start packing now, because you’re going home.”

During a Nov. 11 interview with “Fox and Friends,” Homan elaborated on his decision to lead the Trump administration’s deportation operation.

“I’ve got to go back and help because every morning I get up, every morning I’m [angry] about what this administration did to the most secure border in my lifetime. So I’m going to go back and do what I can to fix it,” he said.

As for what “fixing it” will look like, Homan said immigration enforcement will be “the same as it was during the first administration,” but with “a lot more” deportations, following the spike in recent years of illegal border-crossing.

The award is the nation’s highest civil service award.

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation also named Homan its National Law Enforcement Leader of the Year in 2018.