The Man in Charge of Trump’s Border Policy
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Just 10 days after the election.

The story of a second Trump administration is already taking shape. The appointments are coming pretty fast and pretty furious. Marco Rubio is expected to be named Secretary of State. Steve Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. Elise Stefanik will be UN Ambassador. Elon Musk and former candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead an advisory team. Lee Zeldin, the EPA Administrator.

More than just a collection of names, Trump's appointments provide a window into how he sees the mission of a second term. And while it's hard to know the exact policy priorities of Trump 2.0, one clear priority will be immigration and border control, and more specifically, Trump's campaign promise of mass deportations.

On Sunday night, Trump announced the person he was putting in charge of this effort. Tom Homan is a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Tom Homan. And set to serve as President-elect Trump's so-called border zone, overseeing security along the U.S.-Mexico span and the removal of potentially millions of undocumented immigrants. Homan was the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration.

and played a key role in the controversial family separation policy, which made him a villain among some, but a hero to the MAGA right. Back in March 2023, I went to see Holman talk at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. At that point, in the early stages of the Republican primary, and not long after Americans had seemed to reject extremism in the 2022 midterms, the event was treated like a sideshow. But I remained interested in this convention,

because it acts as a kind of think tank for Trumpism. And I wanted to see the forces that could drive a second Trump administration, if it were to happen. Ladies and gentlemen, who's in charge of the border? Please welcome former director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tom Homan. In a crowd largely made up of Trump superfans,

Holman spoke critically of the Biden administration. Joe Biden's the first president in the history of the nation who came into office and unsecured a border. He responded to critics of the family separation policy. I wake up every day pissed off because this administration destroyed the most secure border in a lifetime. And I'm sick and tired of hearing about the family separation. And I'm still being sued over that. So come get me. I don't give a shit. Right? Bottom line is...

While, of course, talking up Trump and his possible return to power. No one did more.

No one did more to secure this border than President Trump. If you don't like him, then you don't like me. After his panel, we sat down for a more extended interview to discuss his views on the border, family separation, and how he and Trump plan to conduct policies like mass deportations if they got the chance, which, of course, they now have. Today, a candid interview with Tom Holman and a possible glimpse at our immigration future.

From The New York Times, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Run-Up. We sat down in the conference room on the second floor of the Maryland hotel that was hosting the conference. And I started by asking Holman about how we got here. My dad was a cop. My grandfather was a cop. I grew up in a time where people respected law enforcement.

They didn't make a lot of money, but I grew up thinking police officers were there to help people and do good for the community. I grew up in a small town outside of Fort Drum, New York, very patriotic town. Everybody hung an American flag on the front porch. And I was just brought up in a large family, seven kids, and surrounded by law enforcement. And I knew from my youngest years I wanted to be a police officer. He said it was while he was working as a police officer.

that he first took an interest in Border Patrol. I grew up just 20 minutes south of the Canadian border. So I saw him, you know, as a police officer. Actually, the story is I was fishing on St. Lawrence River with me and a couple other cops, and Border Patrol come pulling in with a boat, and we sat there and had a long chat about what they did and, you know, their job, their missions. So I thought about it. I said, okay, well, you know what? That sounds interesting. So they actually told me, hey, there's a test in three weeks. We ought to go down to the post office and take it. And I did. And six months later, I'm

I'm at the Border Patrol Academy. He started in the Border Patrol in 1984. I was in Border Patrol for several years, then became a special agent. So I went from wearing a uniform, arresting people on the border and securing the border, to investigating cartels that smuggled people and smuggled guns. I did that for a couple of decades. I climbed the ladder one rung at a time. And I was the first director of ICE, dominated by President Trump. I actually came up through the ranks. So I spent 34 years on the job.

My proudest moment was being the director of vice because of 20,000 men and women that worked for me.

I didn't ask them to do anything that I didn't do myself as an agent coming up. How would you describe what the rhetoric was around immigration at the time you were joining the Border Patrol? It was a different time. You didn't read bad stories about the Border Patrol every other day. I personally think that the 20,000 men and women that wear that uniform are doing a difficult job. Look, immigration enforcement has always been very controversial. It's always been, you know,

And I get it. It's always been a tough subject for some. But the bottom line is, you know, this nation has a series of laws that's designed to secure this country and make it safe. I'm not anti-immigrant, even though a lot of people say that I am. I'm anti-illegal immigration because of things I've seen in my 34 years. If they saw what I saw, they'd be anti-illegal immigration too. So look, it's become a political football game.

And I'm tired of it, I'm sick of it. And I've had people call me racist, white nationalist, gotta enforce the immigration law. Well, so what's that make Congress? They wrote the law. - And when you were doing that work initially, did you think of it as political in nature? - No, no. I saw, I was sworn as a border patrol agent.

to defend and secure the border. And that's exactly what I did. I mean, I was in the border patrol. I saw a lot of horrendous things from victims of these smuggling organizations. I knew I was doing good things for the country. Were you politically active outside of work? You didn't consider yourself a Republican? Did you have a kind of political identity? I'm a conservative. I was raised conservative. I was raised in a large Catholic family.

So I have my religious beliefs, but I also believe my father was a war hero. Again, he was a police officer. My grandfather was a police officer. My father then became a judge. We're a family. And all of my sisters except one became nurses. My brother is a fireman for 35 years. My family was brought up to serve.

the community, and that's what we all did, and I'm proud of that. I remember reading a story about you in 2015 when President Obama gave you a kind of special designation for the work that you were doing. He gave me a Presidential Rank Award. And one of the things that sparked as a thought here is I wondered how did you, even within once being a Border Patrol investigator, how did you then transition to focusing on deportations?

Well, that's just a part of the ride. When you're with the Immigration Customs Enforcement, there's different sections. I rose to the ranks of HSI, the Homeland Security Investigations, but you know what?

I was offered to come over to Enforcement and Mover Operations, and that section of Enforcement and Mover Operations had to do with enforcing immigration law, much like I did as a Border Patrol agent. So I jumped on and I came to Washington, D.C. and ran the enforcement program for deportations, detention and deportation. Our job was to detain those and remove those that were ordered removed by an immigration judge or to find those in the community that are in the country illegally, again, prioritizing those who were national security threats or criminal aliens.

to look for them, arrest them, detain them, remove them. I imagine it takes a special kind of constitution to be someone who would take that role, right? Like it seems there's a role that is not only, as we know, politically controversial, but as you mentioned on the stage here at CPAC, requires you really seeing some tough stuff. Can you take me through, for people who might be unaware, myself included, what does a deportation look like? What were you seeing that stuck with you? Just so you know, deportations, what we're doing is executing the final order issued by a federal judge, a federal immigration judge.

And, you know, people demand, like what's happening right now, they have a right to claim asylum. They have a right to due process. And you know what? They do. But you can't believe in due process. You can't demand due process and not accept the final outcome of that due process. So when an immigration judge says, okay, well, you lose, I'm going to issue an order of removal. Our job is to execute that removal. I don't know of another law enforcement agency in the world that's

who's not allowed to execute a judge's order. That's what law enforcement officers do. FBI gets the court order to do something, they do it. DEA gets the court order to do something, they do it. So when the court says this person loses, he must be removed, our job is to remove him. And I've said for a long time, we don't make this stuff up. That's the way the law is designed. That's the way the process is designed. So we're simply carrying out the laws as enacted by Congress and signed by a president. You're saying like you've got a problem with the nation going to Congress. I never thought that our job was...

Immigration enforcement is always controversial. I never questioned for a minute, were we doing the right thing? Of course we're doing the right thing. We're enforcing the law. There's a reason why the laws went through Congress, got enacted, got signed by a president. How many deportations do you think you've overseen, if you could estimate? I was a director of enforcement removal operations for three years. I oversaw the removal of over 1 million illegal aliens.

In 2015, to the award that we mentioned, it was partly interesting because they came under President Obama, a Democrat. As a conservative, as someone who has worked under D and R, how did that change from one administration to the next? Did it change the work that you were doing? Every administration has different instructions on how they want us to do our job. So that pendulum swings left and right. President Obama...

He believed in border enforcement. He took steps to secure the border. Look, under President Obama and FY12, we removed 409,000

arrested and removed 409,000 aliens, removed them. That's a record for the agency under President Obama. That's the most ever, to this day, we've ever done. So I did my job. I take it President Obama thought I did it pretty well, and he gave me an award. And during that time, this is also when Donald Trump is rising in the Republican primary, a rise that leaned on immigration and border enforcement for that rise. When you were in the Obama administration, I'm curious how you were looking at what Trump was saying at the time.

My plan was to retire. I announced my retirement before the election, that President Trump would first election. I announced my retirement two months before the election because I just decided to retire. It was actually in January because I gave him 120 days notice because it's a position that's hard to fill. And it was actually at my retirement ceremony in January of 2017.

that the day of my retirement, the day of the event is when I got a call from John Kelly saying the president would like you to stay and run the agency. And I got a call on a Friday that let me stay and run the agency. And I told him I couldn't answer right then. I'd answer on Monday morning 'cause I needed to talk to my family. I already signed a contract with a company to start with them Monday. So I need to find out what are my options? So I told him I'd give him a call back on Monday. They actually said they'd call me Monday morning. They did, and I came back.

But when I announced my retirement and, you know, before the election, my whole, my plan at the time was to retire and go do something different. But I'm saying you surely saw and heard build the walls we all did. You surely saw a Republican Party that was talking differently. I watched the election. Yeah, talking differently about immigration than they had before. To be honest with you, I didn't think President Trump was going to win. I don't think anybody in the country did.

But I liked a lot of what he was saying. I didn't agree with everything he was saying, but I like some of the things he was saying because he wanted to take the border seriously. And look, like I said today, if you heard my speech, it isn't just about illegal immigration anymore. It's about fentanyl. It's about no suspected terrorism. It's about trafficking women and children. I mean, Donald Trump really brought immigration to the forefront of Republican politics. Why do you think that message had such an audience as someone who was leading the kind of policy response on the issue?

Because I think he's the first president wanting to take it on as a serious issue. He put it on the forefront. And as far as I know, in my life, I've never seen it as being a number one issue during a campaign, but he made it a number one issue. And I think, you know, with everything that's going on in the world, I think he thought that this country needs to be secure. After 9-11, I think he thinks the country needs to be secure. And I can't read his mind, but I can't disagree with what he was saying.

Trying to put immigration on the front burner because it needs to be on the front burner. When you hear America first, what does that mean to you? Like at least in the 2016 sense. Our policies take care of Americans first. Where does the border fit in that? Because we're a sovereign nation. Look, let me give you an example. America first. I had some construction done in my house. I had to call five different companies. So I got a company to guarantee me a legal workforce. One of the guys that showed up was a U.S. citizen father and with a U.S. citizen son.

They wanted to see if they just do a repair job, not replace roof. They couldn't. There's only two of them. I asked him, well, you guys can't replace roof? He goes, no. He said, I used to have 20 US citizen employees. He goes, but I can't win bids anymore because these companies aren't illegal aliens. They work for a lot cheaper than the US. I can't get a US citizen on a roof for eight bucks an hour. But some of these companies pay illegal aliens a lot less. I can't compete when they bid on a contract. I can't possibly compete with them. He laid off 20 US citizen employees.

So, that's one example of many that America first means Americans, they have a need to work too.

and they're citizens of this country. They pay taxes, so they ought to be taken. They should be a priority of this government. Yeah, I heard someone earlier today, I'm pretty sure it was Senator Ted Cruz, but it was during that panel, talk about the change in Republican politics specifically around the border and that there used to be a Republican Party where a lot of those big companies, a lot of those big folks were embracing maybe a different type of policy than what President Trump came in and said. Was that shift palpable to you? Did you feel that happening?

Look, I'm not a real political guy, but I can tell you that there's a lot behind illegal immigration. But my thoughts are, if we need people to come to this country to work, then set a system up.

Prove that you can't find American citizens to take that job work with the department labor improve look we've advertised We can't hire your citizens. It's a job they want to do Okay, once you prove that and create a system Congress creates a system brings somebody in on a work visa Let me do the job when I first came in the board Jody to finish what they call the Becerra program and bring people they do the job go back after at the end of season Seem to work pretty good. I wasn't wrong, but I was told by border to agent senior board choice I worked at that was pretty decent program and I support that

that if we need foreign labor to come in, then create a legal system to do it, because now they don't have to pay the criminal cartels. Now they don't have to swim across the river and drown. They can come to a border and actually do it the right way. So I'm not, again, I'm anti-illegal immigration. I'm not anti-immigration. If the system's broke, fix it. More with Tom Holman when we come back. This podcast is supported by USA for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

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Liberties is a journal of consequence, essays of ideas to inspire and lead our culture, our politics. Mario Vargas Llosa called Liberties a triumph for freedom of thought. Ralph Fiennes said, Liberties opened my mind to subjects unfamiliar and points of view unexpected. I am hooked. Engage with today's brightest minds. Subscribe now at libertiesjournal.com forward slash run up or at your favorite bookseller. That's libertiesjournal.com slash run up. One of the big reasons I wanted to talk to Homan at CPAC

was because of his role in Trump's controversial zero-tolerance immigration policy, which led to family separations. About 5,000 children were separated from their parents after their parents were arrested at the border. And for months, the administration denied it was happening and denied the clear message of deterrence it was meant to send. And considering the backlash to that policy that reached all corners of the political spectrum, I was interested in the fact that Homan had been saying from the stage

that he didn't, quote, give a shit about any of that. You have also said some comments you got criticized for, particularly by Democrats. One saying that U.S. unauthorized migrants should be afraid, and you doubled down. You've also, or in some cases, defending the Trump administration policy that led to the separation of children and families. Two things. Yeah. I guess, can I ask a question before that? No, no, let me answer that. When you enter this country illegally in violation of our laws, it's not okay.

You shouldn't be comfortable. I don't go 100 miles an hour down a freeway because I might get a ticket. I don't lie in my taxes because I may go to jail. When you knowingly enter this country illegally, it was a violation of our laws. You shouldn't be comfortable. That's the way it should be. That's the way it's supposed to be. It's not okay to violate our laws and be comfortable. That's what I would meant. If you're illegal in the United States, you need to be concerned because you broke the laws of this country. I don't blame anybody that wants to be part of the greatest nation on earth. I get it.

But the first action would be violating our laws and disrespecting what this country stands for. So you're right. And I stand by that statement. If you're in the country legally, you shouldn't be comfortable. You should be concerned because you broke our laws. On the other thing, on the separation. First of all, there was no policy to separate families. There was zero tolerance policy. Same thing I testified for. In my three decades, I've held dying children. I've held dead children. I've talked to girls as young as 16, 10 years old.

They got raped multiple times by the cartels. I stood in back of a tractor trailer with 19 dead aliens at my feet, including a five-year-old little boy who baked to death. Last words to his father was, Daddy, I'm dying. I don't want to die. That changed me forever. So if we can come up with a policy like zero tolerance that prevents people from making that dangerous journey, as long as the policy is legal and it saves lives, I'll support it.

So it wasn't about separating families. It wasn't about, let's see how we can harm these people. It's about doing what we could so people wouldn't put themselves in the hands of criminal cartels to get raped and get killed. Now, hindsight being 20-20, the re-notification process could have been better, but I was retired at the time. But the intent, the intent was to save lives. It wasn't about separating families. And this comes from the same people who have no problem with separating a baby from a mother's woman killing it. They're fine with that.

But the bottom line is zero tolerance is about saving lives. I mean, I get how you have that as a policy-focused person, but these are also politics at play, too. How do you separate what is the intention of many politicians to use that policy to demonize? I don't follow. I'm saying there's also a political angle. There's always a political angle. That's why I'm saying, do you understand five minutes? Here's a concern.

You're right. They always twist the words. It's always political, right? So they say that Trump's immigration policy is inhumane. Inhumane. Okay, well, put it this way. Trump's policies calm that, okay? If less people come across that border, how many women aren't being raped? How many children aren't drowning in a river? How many Americans aren't dying from a drug overdose because fentanyl is flowing across an open border? President Trump's policies save lives. I don't give a shit what anybody says. I truly believe a secure border saves lives.

because they don't make that journey, they don't put themselves in harm's way.

You talked about deportations from a law enforcement kind of policy perspective, but it is also obviously seen from different perspectives. And I was, I didn't know this, that last year you were scheduled to speak at the America First Political Action Committee. That is a conference that was founded by someone who is a self-avowed white nationalist and anti-Semite. How is speaking there in alignment? I didn't speak there. I know you didn't because you ended up- Let me tell you what happened. You want me to show- No problem, go ahead. Michelle Malcolm-

who used to work at Fox News called me, I was speaking at CPAC. She said, "Would you come speak to a conservative group right after that?" She gave me the name, I didn't know who they were, but I trusted Michelle. So I showed up. I was there 10 minutes, when I read the pamphlet, I got up and left. So I didn't speak there. So I didn't know who these people were. And if I wouldn't have known who they were, I wouldn't even, you know, I trusted somebody that wouldn't do what they did. And I said, I walked in there early. Luckily, I walked in there early and I picked up the pamphlet and I left. I didn't speak there. I don't support Nick Fuentes.

whether he's a white nationalist or not. People call me a racist on the internet. I mean, he calls himself one. So I think he is. I guess I'm asking. I don't know. I've never met the man. I guess I'm asking, why do you think there's an alignment between your message and the message of white nationalists? There's no alignment. That's all bullshit, right? That's an opinion.

I'm not a white nationalist. I'm not a racist. I'm a guy who's seen some terrible things in 35 years. I want to save lives. I don't care what part of lives they are. We started our show last year by talking about the country's demographic shifts. And there are a lot of people who said that they think that the focus on immigration is partly in response to a growing population of Latino Americans, change in the country's demographic makeup. Do you see any connection between those changes and progress?

The growing rhetoric around border security and Republican politics. No. No. I think, again, it's a political talking point. I've never seen a country so divided on politics as I do right now. And, you know, people call the men and women of the Border Patrol racists. These are the finest men and women I've ever worked with. You know, I'm down on the border so many times. You know the only humanity on the border are the men and women of the Border Patrol.

I've been down there about 10 times the past year. These men and women, they don't hang their heart on the wall when they put that badge on. So when people say, well, these policies are connected to white nationalism, I don't play that game. I don't believe in that. Are there people that believe in that? God help them if they do, because I don't agree with them. But I think enforcement of our laws to secure this nation, to save lives, has nothing to do with white nationalism. What would you consider your biggest career success? I saved a lot of lives in my career.

I've saved a lot of lives. And that's where my congressional testimony with Chuy Ramos, Chuy, whatever his name is. He's talking about a viral exchange he had with Congressman Jesus Chuy Garcia, which took place at a House Oversight Committee hearing in 2019.

Garcia, a Democrat from Illinois, was questioning Homan on the subject of family separation. He said, I didn't care about dying children unless they were white. That's what angered me, and that's why we got in a shouting match. Because you can't tell somebody who spent 34 years serving this nation who saved many lives. I've conducted a lot of trafficking investigations. I've conducted a lot of alien smuggling investigations. We have rescued people.

thousands of people at the hands of cartels. So I think I can rest my head on my pillow every night knowing I've saved a lot of lives. Republicans going forward, do you expect border security to be the top issue? It should be. We're dealing with a historic crisis right now. We've never seen numbers like this in the history of this nation. $1.4 million the first year, $2.4 million the second year. We're on a glide path right now to beat $2.4 million.

And what I said is it isn't about illegal immigration anymore, right? But when you cause a crisis this big that takes a big part of the border off the line, that's when the drugs move in to kill Americans. They overdose on it. That's when the child sex trafficking increases. I'm not saying they're all criminals, but you better believe there's some criminals in there, there's some gang members in there, and God help us. What's going on right now is the biggest national security failure this country's seen since 9-11. We don't know who's coming in.

What was the biggest difference between working in ICE under Obama and running ICE under Trump? I did my job on both. They both had different priorities. They both had a different direction. I did what President Obama told me to do. I did what President Trump wanted to do. But both of them wanted to enforce law. And again, if you look at the end, what happened in the end, it wasn't much difference. I worked for six presidents. I respect every president I've ever worked for. But immigration enforcement is like on a pendulum.

It swings right and left. Right now, we can't get any further left on the pension than we are right now. One thing I'll never forget when I was doing the Democratic primary was how on those debate stages, everyone would get to the topic of immigration, and everyone would talk about what President Trump was doing wrong. But very few people would talk about what they were going to do. Well, look at the data. We had the most secure border in my lifetime under President Trump.

And as far as the wall goes, people say now, well, walls don't work. We got record illegal immigration. Apparently, his 465 miles of walls don't work. Wrong. Where does the 1.7 come? Well, there's not a wall. So, you know, again, it turned into political football. But I stand by everything I've done. I'm proud of what I've done. I think I've done a lot for this country. And I know I've saved a lot of lives. And the men and women of the border patrol deserve respect from the American people. There's 126 names on the National Law Enforcement Memorial down the street here.

126 men and women in the Borough of Cho who lost their lives doing the job. I watched them pull babies out of the river. I watched them save toddlers that were abandoned. They find people in the desert all the time that's been abandoned. The men and women of Borough of Cho saved lives. Do you have anything you regret? And that's what I told the congressman when we got an argument in Congress over the whole...

You know, you don't care about children unless you're white. I told him, I spent my career saving lives, so don't every man and woman abort you. I hear that. All I'm saying is, is there any piece that you think did go too far? Or maybe you might say, I would do differently. I don't want to do anything differently. No. Do you wish you did more? I wish I would have put every child trafficker in prison. I put a lot in prison. I wish I would have got them all. Thank you. I appreciate your time. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Since Holman and I sat down with CPAC last year, he's continued to be a leading figure in Trump's inner circle.

I saw him again at Trump's New Hampshire primary victory party, and he had a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. This week, after he was named border czar, we asked for a follow-up interview. He said no, he wasn't available. But he has talked to local news and conservative outlets about his plans once he's in office, and he said this to Fox News on Monday.

Now, I'm going to say, if you're in the country illegally, you shouldn't feel comfortable. Absolutely not. I won't feel comfortable if I'm in the country illegally. If I'm in some other country illegally, I'm not going to be comfortable. You shouldn't be comfortable either, because when you enter this country illegally, you have committed a crime. You are a criminal, and you're not off the table. Homan's recent statements underscore what he was saying to me in 2023, that no undocumented immigrant is off the table when it comes to deportations.

because their existence in the country is itself a crime, at least in the view of this incoming administration, which sets up a dynamic that will be crucial to watch in the next several years as the impact of this election begins to set in. Because whether it's Trump or Homan, it's clear that Republicans see last Tuesday's results as a validation of their policies, including the most controversial ones, like mass deportations and family separation. And their conviction is such that

that it answers a question that I've had since Election Day. Did voters support Trump as a rejection of the Biden administration or as an endorsement of Trump's MAGA agenda? Well, in some sense, it doesn't really matter. Trump and his allies see a mandate in the results, whether that was the intended message or not. Yesterday, Trump announced another cabinet pick,

Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome from Florida, Congressman Matt Gaetz. Gaetz was also a featured speaker at CPAC in 2023, where, like Holman, he laid out an explicit vision

for what the second Trump administration would mean. And I don't care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them, not come to heel. That's the run-up for Thursday, November 14th, 2024.

We'll see you next week for what will be our last episode, at least for a while. Until then.

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