Tom Homan, who will run the new Trump administration’s deportation efforts, promised that under his watch deportations of illegal migrant families will “not be inhumane.”
The second Trump administration has plans for a massive deportation operation to remove illegal migrants, starting with violent criminals. President-elect Donald Trump tapped Homan as “border czar” last month after his election victory, and Homan has been clear that he will lead an aggressive deportation strategy.
“We need to show the American people we can do this and not be inhumane about it,” Homan told The Washington Post in an interview published Thursday.
“We can’t lose the faith of the American people,” he added.
Homan also said the U.S. is prepared to deport parents in the country illegally even if they have young U.S.-born children, allowing the families to decide whether to be deported together or split up and leave their children here.
“Here’s the issue,” Homan said. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
Families will be detained in “soft-sided” tent structures by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Homan, who was acting ICE director during Trump’s first term.
Homan also said the new administration will need to build new family facilities, but how many beds they need will depend on what the data shows.
The new administration will also launch a separate effort to locate more than 300,000 children who came into the country unaccompanied and illegally and were released to adult sponsors who stopped responding to government workers conducting welfare checks.
“I think some of these children will be in forced labor, and some will be in the sex trade,” he said. “I think some will be perfectly fine. We just want to make sure.”
He emphasized that families who enter the country illegally and reunite with their children can go through deportation proceedings together.
“I’m not saying take them into custody,” he said. “We’ll let them get the child and put them in proceedings with the child, so they can go to court and plead their case as a family.”
Across the country, there are now nearly 7.8 million illegal migrants, federal data shows.
Of those, a total of 662,586, just around 8.6%, have been convicted of crimes or have charges pending, according to ICE data through July 21.
Homan said he is confident illegal immigration will decline once enforcement goes up.
“They’re going to try to come illegally, but once the message is clear that we’re ending catch-and-release, the numbers will reduce,” Homan said.
