The White House News

President-elect Trump has announced Tom Homan as his new administration’s border czar, putting a 30-plus-year immigration enforcement veteran at the head of his mass deportation pledge.

Homan, the second Trump appointee announced after White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, ran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an acting capacity in 2017 and 2018 before announcing his retirement.

Here are five things to know about him:

This is his second time coming out of retirement for Trump

Homan led ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) component from 2013 onward under former President Obama, and had planned to retire from public service to a consulting job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in 2017.

But on the way out of his retirement party, Homan received a call from then-White House chief of staff John Kelly offering him the top job at ICE.

He has since been a vocal cheerleader for the incoming president, joking with reporters in 2017 that Trump, “like him or love him, is doing the right thing.”

With Trump’s announcement Sunday, Homan left his job at Fox News as a contributor and will become one of Trump 2.0’s chief immigration architects along with hardliner Stephen Miller, who will occupy a White House position as a deputy to Wiles.

Though Trump sent a nomination to the Senate for Homan to formally lead ICE in 2018, Homan called it quits rather than face a potentially bruising Senate process.

He’s a 30-plus year veteran of immigration enforcement

Homan kicked off his law enforcement career as a police officer in West Carthage, N.Y., his hometown, before moving on to the Border Patrol, the defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service and then ICE, rising through the ranks.

His tenure at the top of ICE was seen as a boon for the agency’s chronic employee morale problem.

Homan’s demeanor as a cop’s cop helped him impress his bosses, too; in 2017, Trump praised Homan in a speech as someone who “looks very nasty, he looks very mean.”

“That’s what I’m looking for,” Trump said.

But Homan had a reputation as a moderate in the Obama administration, drawing criticism from some hardliners early in the first Trump administration.

Homan, however, became the face of the Trump administration’s most hawkish immigration policies.

He was an early proponent of family separations

He reportedly proposed family separations as an immigration deterrent even before Trump became president.

A veteran of Operation Streamline from his days along the border, Homan had seen first-hand the effects of criminalizing unauthorized border crossings.

Operation Streamline was a joint Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security initiative that sought to bring criminal charges against people caught crossing the border in an attempt to raise the stakes for first-time crossers.

According to The Atlantic, in 2014, Homan proposed family separations as a deterrent to Obama Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who shot the idea down as “heartless and impractical.”

But Homan’s idea gained traction in 2017 under Trump, leading to the separation of more than 4,000 children from their parents.

In 2018, Homan skirted questions about whether the policy was humane, telling CNN he enforced it because “I think it’s the law and I’m in law enforcement and I must follow the law.”

He did not respond Monday to a request for comment by The Hill.

He’s a Project 2025 co-author

Homan is listed as a contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” a blueprint of that organization’s vision of a conservative government.

Since 2022, Homan has been a visiting fellow at Heritage.

He’s also developed close ties with immigration restrictionist groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), an organization that helped staff the top echelons of ICE when Homan was in charge.

Homan’s tenure as an advocate for tighter immigration enforcement has drawn accolades from the right and recrimination from the left.

In 2019, he faced off against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in a congressional hearing on the zero tolerance program, where he admitted to recommending the policy to former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, but denied that family separations were the end goal.

Homan’s encounter with Ocasio-Cortez was far from the first time he upset progressives or members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).

In 2017, he angered immigrant advocates by putting together his ICE office with top appointments for operatives from groups like CIS and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The relationship had been soured months before, when Homan canceled a meeting with Democrats, including CHC and immigration policy leaders, following a series of ICE raids ordered to capture “dangerous criminal aliens.”

Those raids rounded up hundreds of undocumented immigrants who immigrant rights groups said were otherwise law-abiding, setting off the confrontation.

Homan on Monday pledged to conduct workplace raids in a second Trump administration.

He will embrace the title ‘border czar’

Though “border czar” is not an official government title, Homan is expected to oversee day-to-day operations and strategy on both border security enforcement and interior enforcement.

Unlike Vice President Harris, who was given the same title by Republicans but not the White House, Homan will seek to highlight his border czar role and use it to rally the immigration enforcement troops.

Harris was never appointed as border czar, an informal position held in the Clinton and Obama administrations by Alan Bersin and early in the Biden administration by former Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson.

In 2019, Trump announced Homan would be his border czar, a decision that apparently caught Homan by surprise, but that assignment was overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Harris was attacked by Republicans as a failed border czar, though she denied having that role, instead acting as a bridge between the Biden White House and Central American countries that are both a source of origin and transit for migrants on their way to the United States.

Harris largely avoided visiting the border, opening another line of attack from Republicans.

Homan, conversely, is likely to visit the border early and often, and to focus his czar role inwardly, rather than internationally.

His role in directing workplace raids, potential family separations and deportations of immediate family members of U.S. citizens — an issue he’s said would be solved by deporting entire families — will make him a target of immigrant advocacy critics.

“Frankly, I don’t care what people think about me, especially in the left,” Homan told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on Monday that President elect-Trump “and his transition team are already breaking” a law on presidential transition.

“Donald Trump and his transition team are already breaking the law,” Warren said in a post on the social platform X. “I would know because I wrote the law. Incoming presidents are required to prevent conflicts of interest and sign an ethics agreement.”

“This is what illegal corruption looks like,” she added.

Warren was responding to a report from CNN on Saturday that said a conflict of interest pledge included in the Presidential Transition Act was, in part, keeping multiple transition agreements from being submitted by the president-elect’s team to the Biden administration.

The Presidential Transition Act instructs candidates from major parties to join in memorandums of understanding with the current president as well as the General Services Administration (GSA) so staff may get their hands on relevant resources like facilities, documents, executive branch employees and national security information in the period between the election and the inauguration. Those agreements also feature an ethics plan.

Last month, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) raised concerns in a letter to Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance over their campaign’s failure to enter into presidential transition agreements with the federal government. Raskin warned that the delay could have an unfavorable impact on the transfer of power in the upcoming year.

“Breaking the precedent set by every other presidential candidate since 2010, you have rejected these resources and refused to commit to a smooth transition,” Raskin wrote.

“Your actions depart from well-established norms of the federal government and demonstrate a spectacular disregard for the successful continuation of the essential institutions of American democratic government,” he added.

The Hill has reached out to a spokesperson for Trump, the White House and the GSA for comment.

A White House spokesperson on Monday pushed back on President-elect Trump’s demand that the Democratic Senate stop confirming judges during the lame-duck period before he takes office and the upper chamber flips to GOP control.

Senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates in a statement pointed to past precedent and the “real-life toll” such a pause would take on constituents to reject Trump’s request, which the Republican posted over the weekend on social media.

“Regardless of party, the American people expect their leaders to prioritize the rule of law and ensuring the criminal justice system can function effectively in every state,” Bates said in a statement to The Hill. “Delaying the confirmation of strongly qualified, experienced judges takes a real-life toll on constituents and leads to backlogs of criminal cases — meaning there is every urgent reason for Republicans and Democrats to continue working together in good faith to staff the federal bench.”

Bates noted that the then-GOP-led Senate confirmed 55 nominee during the lame-duck period of Trump’s first term after President Biden had won the 2020 election, including 18 judges.

“There is no excuse for choosing partisanship over enforcing the rule of law,” Bates said.

Democrats still hold a narrow majority in the Senate until the new session of Congress gets seated in early January. Republicans are poised to have at least 52 Senate seats in the next Congress, with GOP nominee David McCormick leading in the Pennsylvania race that is still too close to call.

Trump weighed in on the ongoing GOP Senate leadership race Sunday, posting on Truth Social that anyone seeking the top job must be willing to make recess appointments, which can allow a president to appoint nominees without going through the confirmation process. 

In the same post, Trump wrote that “no Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership.”

White House climate adviser John Podesta on Monday sought to reassure the world that the U.S. would move forward on combating climate change despite the election of President-elect Trump, who has long cast doubt on the science behind the issue.

“While the United States federal government under Donald Trump may put climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” Podesta said during a press conference at the COP 29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

“Here at COP 29 and moving forward, the private sector must continue to lead to make new and bigger investments in clean energy technologies to continue to innovate and build a net-zero economy, and we will continue to need sub-national actors in the U.S. and globally to lead the way,” he added. 

Trump is poised to roll back a number of climate-related regulations. He has also railed against laws such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which made major investments in climate change, and vowed to rescind the unspent dollars.

In the wake of his election, foreign governments may be skeptical of any commitments the U.S. makes on climate change, as Trump is unlikely to prioritize climate action and has repeatedly downplayed the dangers of the warming world. 

Podesta, however, detailed actions that the Biden administration may take in the months ahead to insulate its climate achievements from the Trump presidency: including spending more money set aside for climate in the IRA and finalizing rules governing how its tax credits will be implemented.

“We have already awarded $98 billion, that’s about 88 percent of the money that’s available in the fiscal years, available to us. We’re committed to moving forward and getting more of that done,” Podesta said.

“ We have some important tax guidance that needs to be put out, particularly on the …technology neutral production and investment tax credits for clean energy production, for clean hydrogen and  a couple of other tax credits. So we’re finalizing those rules, and in the meantime, we’re also trying to work, as I said, with our state and local partners,” he said. 

President-elect Trump has urged the next leader of Senate Republicans to support him in making recess appointments as three prominent GOP members are battling it out to succeed their leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump said on the social platform X Sunday.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who are vying for the role of GOP leader in the upper chamber, have all said recently that Trump should be able to make recess appointments without input from the Senate.

But what are recess appointments? And how do they work? Here’s what you need to know:

What are recess appointments?

Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution gives the president the power to “appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States,” but they have to do so “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.”

The following clause, Article 2, Section 2, Clause 3, however, grants presidents the ability “to make temporary appointments when the Senate is not in session,” according to an annotation of the Constitution. These appointments can stay in place for up to two years.

If Trump can go ahead with recess appointments, it would let the president-elect speedily push through nominees and appointments without needing the upper chamber’s approval.

Why might Trump need the backing of the next Senate GOP leader for recess appointments?

From the Obama administration on, Senate leaders have agreed not to allow the upper chamber to be out for recess for more than a few days without having ceremonial pro forma sessions blocking recess appointments from presidents on both sides of the aisle.

President-elect Trump has selected former Rep.  Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, putting a second New Yorker and loyalist into his forming Cabinet.

“I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected former Congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin, will be appointed to serve as The Administrator of The United States Environmental Protective Agency (EPA),” Trump said in a written statement. 

“Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies,” Trump added.

Zeldin would be expected to look to roll back regulations on the environment as part of the Trump administration, something the president signaled in his statement.

He said Zeldin will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards.”

Zeldin said Monday in a post on X that it’s “an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator.” 

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he added.

Zeldin, 44, served in Congress between 2015 and 2023. He did not seek reelection in 2022, instead challenging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for her seat.

While he lost the race by about 6 percentage points, he outperformed Republicans in past elections in the solidly blue state.

He joins Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as the second New Yorker so far in Trump’s new Cabinet. Stefanik is set to become U.S. representative to the United Nations.

Both positions are subject to Senate confirmation.

In its statement announcing that he would lead the EPA, the Trump campaign said that Zeldin’s “strong performance at the top of the ticket helped Republicans flip multiple suburban House districts in New York, resulting in the Republican Party’s majority in the House of Representative.”

Last year, Zeldin launched a political action committee that aimed to support Republican candidates in their outreach to young voters, voters of color and Jewish voters, constituencies that have historically been more supportive of Democrats.

While in Congress, Zeldin served on the House Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees — each of which have limited influence on environment policy.

This story was updated at 3:59 p.m.