President-elect Donald Trump has announced that Tom Homan, former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, will serve as “border czar” in his incoming administration.

“I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation’s Borders (‘The Border Czar’),” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site late Sunday.

Homan, a former police officer and Border Patrol agent, served in the Trump administration as acting ICE director from January 2017 to June 2018.

Tom Homan speaks as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens at a primary election night party in Nashua, N.H., on Jan. 23. Matt Rourke/Associated Press, file

“I think that the calling is clear: I got to go back and help,” Homan said Monday morning on Fox News.

A “border czar” role does not require Senate confirmation. Homan stepped down from the administration in frustration when the White House failed to move his nomination as ICE director toward Senate confirmation, and he became a Fox News analyst on immigration and border issues.

In a second Trump term, Homan “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” Trump said in his post, adding that he has “no doubt” Homan “will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”

Trump recaptured the White House after promising a militarized, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. He said in his victory speech last week, “We’re going to have to seal up those borders.”

Homan has enthusiastically backed Trump’s call for mass deportations, including during a speech this summer at the Republican National Convention.

“I got a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden’s released in our country in violation of federal law: You better start packing now,” Homan said. “You’re damn right. Because you’re going home.”

Trump has suggested the deportations will first target criminals, which Homan emphasized Monday morning.

“I’ve been clear, and President Trump’s been clear: Public safety threats and national security threats will be the priority because they have to be,” Homan said. “They pose the most danger to this country.”

At the same time, Homan said that “worksite operations have to happen” as well. The Biden administration ended large-scale immigration arrests at jobs sites, which Homan said made it easier for employers to hire unauthorized workers, including children.

Homan said in an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that military troops would not be used to round up and arrest undocumented immigrants. ICE, he said, would work to carry out Trump’s plans in a “humane manner” in what will be a “necessary” and “well-targeted, planned operation,” he said.

In Trump’s first term, he fell far short of his pledge to deport millions of immigrants as his administration faced resource constraints, legal challenges and a public outcry over tactics including the separation of migrant children from their parents. Trump is expected to bring back many of the same officials who attempted to carry out those policies during his first term.

Homan was a key architect of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated thousands of children from their parents.

At ICE, Homan was known for an intense devotion to the job, frequently pushing back against allegations that agents acted too aggressively. In the past, Homan praised Trump for “taking the shackles” off ICE agents by allowing them to make a broader range of immigration arrests in the U.S. interior.

After leaving Trump’s administration, Homan became a Fox News contributor and joined the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, as a visiting fellow.

Homan contributed to Project 2025, Heritage’s policy and personnel blueprint for a possible second Trump term that became a top issue in the presidential race. Trump sought to distance himself from Project 2025 as Democrats persistently criticized him over it. “I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump said in July.