New Border Czar Tom Homan: Prize-winning public servant

Trump haters are screaming about the anticipated separation of families under Operation Aurora, the mass-deportation of illegal aliens that president-elect Donald J. Trump promises, and which 58% of Americans support, per an October 16 Marquette University survey.

"If Trump gets his way, his deportation program threatens to rip families apart," Vox shouted on November 8. A Denver Post editorial compared Trump's plan to FDR's effort "to round up foreign-born Japanese Americans during World War II" and "a clear nod to the white supremacists backing his campaign."

Here is my free advice to foreign citizens who want both the American Dream and family cohesion: Enter legally.

My sainted parents arrived in 1962 with U.S. visas in their Costa Rican passports. I hatched in Los Angeles in 1963, and my sisters followed in 1965 and 1967. So far, no one has threatened to send us anywhere.

My mother's parents, sister, and younger brother arrived in 1965. They all landed legally. My Aguelo and Aguela (as we called them) are gone, but my aunt and uncle are in L.A. — alive and well.

Lesson: To avoid family separation, come to America legally. If you invade — as Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have let 8.4 million illegals do — you instantly violate 8 U.S. Code § 1325 "Improper entry by alien." Henceforth, you are a lawbreaker, and America owes you less than nothing.

Illegal-alien lovers now focus their rage on the incoming Border Czar. Heidi Altman of the National Immigration Law Center said, "Tom Homan is skilled at using public safety rhetoric to justify vicious tactics that tear families apart." Arash Azizzada of Afghans For A Better Tomorrow told Al Jazeera that Homan's appointment confirms Trump's dedication to keeping his "most cruel and racist policy promises."

Such hyperbolic twits should dismount their unicorns and fill hard chairs before absorbing this news:

Homan received a Presidential Rank Award for serving ICE. He scored that honor in January 2016 — from Barack Obama, one of six Democrat and Republican presidents whom Homan served between 1984 and 2018. (In July 2016, the Associated Press reported, Obama had deported "more than 2.4 million people, nearly as many as his two predecessors combined.")

That's right: Obama saluted Homan's performance as Executive Associate Director (EAD) of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). According to ICE's press release trumpeting Homan's trophy, this distinction — "the nation's highest civil service award" — is "bestowed to leaders who've achieved sustained extraordinary results."

ICE described Homan's "extensive accomplishments" as "impressive and wide-reaching in scope."

• In Fiscal Year 2013, Homan deployed a "federal biometric information sharing capability that resulted in the removal of more than 325,000 criminal aliens."

• "In FY 2014, ERO removed nearly 316,000 individuals from the United States," ICE explained. "Nearly 56 percent, or 177,960 of those removed, were convicted criminal aliens... [who] would fill the Dallas Cowboys' Stadium to capacity more than two times over." (Note the liberal use of the proper legal term "aliens" rather than today's gratingly Woke euphemism: "Migrants.")

• "In the three years that EAD Homan has been at the helm, ERO has removed more than 920,000 aliens from the United States…[including] 534,000 criminal aliens. These accomplishments have a direct impact on national security and public safety."

• "And finally," ICE concluded, "a record 98 percent of FY 2015 removals met one or more of the civil immigration enforcement priorities, which constitutes a near perfect execution of the stated mission." Democrats who foam at their mouths at this news should relax, wipe their frothy chins, and read this:

"I think the American people appreciate and believe in immigration. But they can't have a situation where you just have half a million people pouring over the border without any kind of mechanism to control it."

Thus spoke Barack Obama in 2009. His words were as true then as they are today. And Tom Homan, Trump's new Border Czar, has Obama's Presidential Rank Award to prove it.

© 2026 Deroy Murdock