EXCLUSIVE — As President-elect Donald Trump’s team plans for Day One of mass deportations, border czar Tom Homan is warning that many illegal immigrants without criminal histories will undoubtedly get caught up in the arrests.
In a phone call Monday, Homan shared with the Washington Examiner new details about how the incoming administration will arrest, detain, and remove hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of illegal immigrants living in the United States.
Immigrants whose only accused crime was entering the country illegally should expect deportation, Homan said, even if they are merely a family member or residing with someone who is the target of an arrest warrant.
“In sanctuary cities, expect a lot of collateral arrests,” Homan said. “I mean, not priority criminal arrests. We can’t get the bad guy in jail. That means we have to go into the communities and find them, and there may be others. We expect a lot of collateral arrests.”
Sanctuary cities and states, such as California, do not allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that carries out immigration enforcement inside the U.S., to transfer illegal immigrants from local and state police jails to federal custody. The largely Democratic-run sanctuary cities and states nationwide maintain that it is not their responsibility to do federal work or to cooperate with federal law enforcement partners.
For ICE, it means having to go to people’s homes, places of work, or in between to arrest someone. Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance have promised to start by arresting people who have criminal histories and 1.4 million who have been ordered deported by a judge but have not been removed.
“There’s over 700,000 criminal aliens with criminal convictions,” Homan said.
The Biden administration set priorities for ICE arrests that focused on illegal immigrants with criminal convictions for serious crimes.
Under Trump, those parameters will be greatly widened to include anyone who is unlawfully present in the country.
“ICE is going to do what they’re good at,” Homan said.
Trump signaled in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that the mass deportations could sweep up millions of illegal immigrants, saying, “You have no choice” but to deport everyone who is illegally in the U.S.
Trump promised as a candidate in the November presidential election to carry out the country’s largest-ever deportation effort. As was the case in his 2016 presidential run, Trump made immigration and crime central themes again this time.
His selections of Homan as border czar and Stephen Miller as a senior White House aide suggest he could go further on both issues than his first term, with the help of a cooperative GOP-led congress.
Starting on Day One
ICE and the Trump administration will not wait until Jan. 20, 2025, when Trump is sworn in, to begin planning how to expand deportations. The plans are already being drawn up in a significant way, Homan said Monday.
“We’re starting across the country on the same day” that Trump takes office, he said.
“Twenty-four [ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations] field offices — some cover two or three states,” Homan said. “Every field office will be given the direction that they are to begin looking for, arresting, detaining, removing those in the United States that have been arrested for a crime.”
Homan has eye on military planes
The Washington Examiner was first to report in November that Trump transition team advisors were pushing their peers to acquire use of military service members and aircraft.
Homan said he is keen on getting military aircraft to help move people in custody from one place to another.
“I hope we get to that,” Homan said. “We could use them as a force multiplier.”
At present, ICE uses 13 planes from a private contractor to transport illegal immigrants in custody within the country and for deportation flights. Homan said he made known his desire for planes.
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“I made it clear that I want their assistance,” Homan said.
The Trump-Vance transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the process of acquiring military planes.
