Retired acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Thomas Homan might be back in the Trump administration … or not. Donald Trump told Fox News that Homan would supposedly be returning following his failed nomination to permanently lead ICE as a “border czar,” where “he’ll be very much involved in the border. He’ll be reporting directly to me. He’ll be probably working out of the White House but spending a lot of time at the border.”
But Homan, who has become an official Fox News contributor after basically working there in a part-time capacity while acting ICE director, told state television that "I think yesterday's announcement—I think the White House has made it clear that it was kind of premature,” and that he didn’t take the job when it was allegedly previously offered by former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen because it wasn’t “structured right” and he "didn't think it had the proper authority.”
What he’s probably looking for is authority to terrorize immigrant families on his own terms, because that’s what he did at ICE, and he was radical enough that it may have lost him Senate support but got him some approval from Trump. Under Trump’s executive orders and on Homan’s watch, unleashed agents detained Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, targeted activists and journalists, and routinely flouted ICE policy dictating that churches, schools, and hospitals should generally be off-limits to enforcement.
It’s still unclear whether Homan will return, and this whole dumb idea could very well be over as quickly as it started, because it’s not the first time Trump has talked about bringing this disgrace of a human being back into the fold: Homan’s name was very briefly floated as a replacement for Nielsen. In just a few weeks’ time this could all very well be out of Trump’s mind as he instead focuses on how to make D.C.’s Fourth of July celebration more about himself. “He’s a good man,” Trump said during this latest announcement that Homan himself seemed to be turning down. “He’s a good man.” Hilarious.