A former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director who has promised worksite immigration enforcement will serve as the incoming administration’s “border czar,” President-elect Donald Trump announced Sunday.
Tom Homan was acting director of ICE during Trump’s first administration, and Trump said “there is nobody better at policing and controlling our [b]orders.”
Homan, in an interview on 60 Minutes last month, backed Trump’s call for historic deportation operations and said worksites would be a target.
U.S. workplaces saw a significant uptick in immigration raids during the first Trump administration. In one of the largest raids of the last decade, immigration agents arrested more than 650 people at seven Mississippi poultry plants.
Meatpacking facilities have long relied on immigrant communities — during the early days of the pandemic, 45.4% of meatpacking workers were born outside the U.S., 28 percentage points higher than the average share for all industries combined, according to the American Immigration Council.
The dairy sector is also reliant on immigrant workers— often undocumented—to milk and tend to cows. A study from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service found that retail milk prices would nearly double if farmers lost access to foreign-born workers.
Homan said he doesn’t use the term “raids,” but noted that the Biden administration largely ended wide-scale workplace roundups — “and that’s going to be necessary.”
He said the administration will look for individuals working in the country illegally as well as trafficking victims. Homan also indicated that he would first focus on individuals who pose a threat to public safety or national security.
Sarah Zimmerman contributed to this story.