Following the killing of Alex Pretti, President Donald Trump announced a serious shakeup inside his immigration operation in Minnesota. While a full retreat isn’t set to happen anytime soon, the president has deployed his “border czar,” Tom Homan, to carry the effort.
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Homan arrived in Minneapolis on Tuesday (Jan. 27) as the “main point of contact on the ground,” according to the White House. His appointment comes right as Trump kicked Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino, who previously led the ICE operation, back to his original post at the southern border. The change of leadership represents a turning point in the tense battle in the city, and Homan’s “border czar” reputation should have everyone paying close attention.
The 64-year-old got his start as a police officer in New York, but by 1984, he landed a job in California as a border patrol officer, according to his bio. At the time, President Ronald Reagan was focused on balancing enforcement with the legalization of undocumented immigrants already inside the country.
Homan soon rose through the ranks, even joining the Immigration and Naturalization Service. By 2013– during former President Barack Obama’s second term– he oversaw the Enforcement and Removal Operations branch of ICE, which had only been around for ten years at that point.
Then-President Obama awarded Homan the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service— one of the highest civil service honors— for his effectiveness in managing deportation operations during the Obama administration in 2015.
An estimated 432,000 deportations were carried out in 2013 making history as the highest annual report ever. Even deportations in Trump’s first term never touched those numbers, according to the Associated Press. After all of his success, Homan retired in 2017 when Trump first took office. During his 2017 retirement party, however, a phone call from then-Chief of Staff John Kelly totally changed Homan’s plans.
“I remember him saying, I know it was bad timing, but the president-elect wanted me to stay and run [ICE],” Homan told the Daily Caller. “Monday morning, I called [Kelly] and said I want to come back.”
As luck would have it, Trump’s search for strong leadership committed to building a southern border wall, family separation and mass deportation ended with Homan coming out of retirement. He’s often credited for introducing the family separation policy to deter immigration in 2014, but Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson reportedly scrapped the idea, according to The Atlantic. In 2018, however, family separation became a leading effort under Trump’s policy thanks to Homan.
“If you’re in the country illegally, you should be concerned,” Homan previously told the AP. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Just like if I go speeding down the highway, are you worried about getting a ticket? If you lie on your taxes, are you worried about an audit?“
Homan’s approach to deportations largely mirrors Trump’s. Both rarely make exceptions for undocumented immigrations and are unapologetic about it. They were a match made in heaven…until Homan retired again in 2018.
Oh, but Homan couldn’t stay away for too long. Trump 2.0 brought him out of retirement once more. Now, the president has celebrated Homan as his “border czar,” a term he previously used to criticize former Vice President Kamala Harris. The White House fully stood behind Homan last year following allegations he accepted cash during a 2024 undercover FBI probe. Investigations into the accusations were ultimately shut down by Trump.
That brings us to 2026 when Homan declared, “I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Now that he’s on the ground in Minneapolis, it seems the border czar is trying to accomplish this major feat.
He announced the new Minneapolis effort will now focus on “targeted” operations and that will be “safer, more efficient, by the book.” But Homan stressed, “We are not surrendering the president’s mission on immigration enforcement.”
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