Trump’s ‘border czar’ pick says he hasn’t accepted the post over structure concerns
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick for his “border czar” says he’s not accepting the job — at least “as of right now.”
The former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan told Fox News that Trump’s announcement that he would rejoin the administration to coordinate its response to a surge in illegal border crossings was “premature.”
Homan said he’s still in discussions with the White House about the position but has reservations about the way the position would be set up.
“I think any sort of border czar needs to be a person who coordinates an allgovernment response to the border,” he said, adding, “that wasn’t the way it was set up.”
Trump had made the announcement Friday in an interview with the program “Fox & Friends.”
Homan ran ICE as acting director during the first 18 months of the Trump administration, but he retired in frustration when the White House failed to move his nomination toward Senate confirmation.
The former police officer and Border Patrol agent was known at ICE for intense devotion and an emotional style, especially when pushing back at allegations that ICE agents acted too aggressively and against calls for the agency to be eliminated. Homan frequently applauded Trump for “taking the shackles” off ICE by giving agents latitude to make a broader range of immigration arrests in the U.S. interior.
The appointment to the newly created position comes after Trump has expressed deep frustration and anger at his own officials for refusing to enforce his demands to shut down the flow of immigrants across the southwestern border.
Stephen Miller, the president’s senior adviser, remains the intellectual engine behind the administration’s immigration agenda. But in Homan, the president may have finally found the ask-no-questions enforcer of the nation’s immigration laws that he has always longed for.
If he is empowered by Trump, Homan could help push the bureaucracy — including the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and Justice — to work together more effectively to carry out the agenda that Trump and Miller have devised.