Former Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan says former President Donald Trump can carry out a “historic deportation operation” but needs “every Republican in Congress” backing him up by passing critical legislation and providing immense resources.
In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Daily, Homan said the process must start with ridding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of “Deep State” actors — those political appointees that he says work for President Joe Biden to ensure agents are unable to do their jobs.
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Breitbart · Tom Homan – July 17, 2024“I think we know who the Deep State is, it starts with Alejandro Mayorkas and the political appointees that they’ve spread across the agencies … so we start with the political appointees because they’re working for the administration, they’re not working for the agencies,” Homan said. “They’re there to keep an eye on the agencies to make sure the agencies can’t do what they’re supposed to do.”
“ICE is ending detention operations and giving it to NGOs … it’s not hard, you start with the political appointees and you work your way down from there,” Homan continued.
After cleaning house, Homan said House and Senate Republicans must pass H.R.2 — the premier border security legislation from Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) that would overhaul how the federal government can more fiercely enforce the nation’s borders, deport illegal aliens, and effectively end asylum fraud.
H.R.2 was passed in the Republican-controlled House but was not considered by the Senate.
“We know that would work, why would it work? Because it was some of Trump’s policies and we proved it worked,” Homan said.
“Here’s the problem, even with the Trump policies, how many beds is ICE going to have? What is it that Congress will give ICE to buy more detention beds? What will they give ICE to expand the transportation contract … to get people out of the country? What are they going to allow ICE to do in terms of law enforcement resources?” Homan asked rhetorically. “That’s where the problem is going to be. We need to have both the House and Senate so we don’t have that problem.
Homan said House and Senate Republicans should not mimic their actions taken in 2017 and 2018 when little-to-nothing was done to secure the border despite the GOP controlling both branches. Instead, tax cuts were passed and became the focal point of Republican lawmakers’ agenda.
“Even if we do have the House and Senate, I hope they do a hell of a lot better than they did under the first two years of Trump when they wouldn’t help him lock down the border and Trump had to sign all these executive actions because Republicans weren’t there to help him,” Homan said.
“I hope with everything going on in this country in the last four years, every Republican in the Congress, every Republican in the Senate is going to back up this president,” Homan continued. “If that doesn’t happen, it’s going to be hard for him to be successful.”
Logistically, Homan said it is necessary for Trump to be at the top of such a deportation effort because his strength is vital to getting foreign leaders to take their nationals back.
“People need to understand, you don’t just arrest somebody this morning and deport them this afternoon unless they’re a citizen of Mexico. You have to detain them long enough to get a travel document from their home country and get their home country to accept the fact that they’re a citizen,” Homan said. “Then you’ve got … countries like China who won’t take them back.”
Trump, Homan said, has a record already on pressuring countries to take their nationals back even when they put up a fight.
“The historic deportation operation … this is going to require a strong president like President Trump who for instance, when we did operations and arrested almost 500 MS-13 gang members, and I told the president, it’s tough to get these people back to El Salvador because they push back, especially on gang members,” Homan said. “It took Trump 48 hours, two days, to call El Salvador and tell them they are going to take the gang members back or he will take back every single dollar of international aid away from them. They came to the table quickly.”
“He did the same thing for the other Central American countries. Mexico, they didn’t want to do the Remain in Mexico program, they said no,” Homan said. “Then Trump said ‘I’ll tariff the hell out of you to the billions of dollars’ and now all of a sudden they’re in.”
“Biggest deportation operation but we’ve got a lot of hurdles still to come to make that successful,” Homan said.
Today, there are anywhere from 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States, with hundreds of thousands pouring across the southern border every month on President Joe Biden’s watch. The overwhelming majority of those arriving at the border, today, are being released into the U.S. interior.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
