Tom Homan Warns Migrants to 'Self-Deport': 'We Know Who You Are'
President-elect Donald Trump's new border czar has warned migrants in the U.S. illegally to "self-deport" ahead of the next Trump administration.
On Monday, Trump appointed Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration, to serve as border czar, charging him with curbing illegal immigration.
That same day, Homan appeared on Fox News, where host Sean Hannity asked him if there would be a "grace period" in which migrants living in the U.S. illegally were allowed a few months to get their affairs in order before leaving the country under the Trump administration.
"Criminals and gang members get no grace period," Homan replied. "While we're out prioritizing the public safety threats and national security threats, if you wanna self-deport, you should self-deport because, again, we know who you are, and we're gonna come and find you."
"So if you wanna self-deport, that's fine. But criminals and gang members, they get no favors from this administration. You came to this country illegally, which is a crime. You committed crimes against United States citizens, some heinous crimes. You get no grace period. So we're coming for you," he continued.
Homan added that he was "all for" the self-deportation of migrants living in the U.S. illegally who were not criminals or gang members.
"But for those others, the noncriminals, you wanna self-deport, I'm all for it because when you self-deport, they can put everything in order—their family business, if they got homes or whatever. They can put all that in order and leave with their family all together," he said.
One of Trump's key campaign promises was to mount the largest domestic deportation in U.S. history. He made similar promises when he ran for the presidency in 2016, but during his administration, deportations never topped 350,000. For comparison, then-President Barack Obama carried out 432,000 deportations in 2013, the highest annual total since records began.
Trump has also said he will use the National Guard to round up migrants and invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen from a country the U.S. is at war with.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign for comment on whether the president-elect supports migrants self-deporting.
In addition to serving in Trump's first administration, Homan contributed to Project 2025, the conservative agenda that Trump distanced himself from during the campaign.
Project 2025 proposes that ICE detain undocumented immigrants with records of felonies, violent crimes, DUIs, prior deportations or any offense deemed a national security or public safety threat under law.
The plan also seeks to eliminate T and U visas, which grant legal status to victims of serious crimes and human trafficking who assist law enforcement. Additionally, Project 2025 calls for repealing Temporary Protected Status, a program that allows migrants from dangerous regions to live in the U.S. legally. Ending TPS would affect almost 1.2 million people who hold or qualify for this status.
During Trump's first administration, TPS was paused for about 400,000 migrants, but after extended litigation, the Biden administration reinstated and expanded the program for all affected countries.
In an interview with CBS News last month, Homan said that under Trump's mass deportation plan, "families could be deported together." He also said the administration's deportation effort would be targeted.
"It's not going to be a mass sweep of neighborhoods. It's not going to be building concentration camps. I've read it all. It's ridiculous," Homan told CBS.
During the first Trump administration, Homan oversaw a record number of children in U.S. custody. In 2018, 12,800 immigrant children were being cared for by the Department of Health and Human Services, CNN reported.
In 2017, Homan announced that his agency would arrest undocumented individuals who came forward to care for migrant children—a policy avoided by previous administrations.
"You cannot hide in the shadows," Homan said at a border security event in Washington, emphasizing that parents should be "shoulder to shoulder" with their children in court.
"We're going to put the parents in immigration proceedings, at a minimum," he continued, adding: "Is that cruel? I don't think so."
That same year, he told Congress that migrants living in the U.S. illegally "should be afraid."
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