Tom Homan

Homan married Elizabeth Homan in 1980, and they have four children. He has described himself as a lifelong Catholic and has been characterized as a devout Mass-goer.

He grew up in West Carthage, New York, in a family connected to local law enforcement. His father and grandfather were West Carthage police officers.

Homan began his law enforcement career as a West Carthage police officer in 1983. He joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1984 and worked as a United States Border Patrol agent, investigator, and supervisor. His assignments included California, Arizona, and the Texas border with Mexico, where he supervised operations in 2003.

He earned an associate degree in criminal justice from Jefferson Community College and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from SUNY Polytechnic Institute. After the creation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homan continued his career with ICE and spent more than three decades in immigration enforcement.

In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Homan executive associate director of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division. In that role, Homan oversaw efforts to identify people facing deportation orders and remove them from the United States. The division operated during a fiscal year in which more than 432,000 people were deported, the highest total of Obama's presidency.

Obama awarded Homan the 2015 Presidential Rank Award as a Distinguished Executive. The award recognized his work in immigration enforcement and his handling of a surge involving unaccompanied children and families from Central America.

After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, incoming Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly offered Homan the position of acting ICE director. Homan took office in January 2017 and oversaw a sharp increase in ICE arrests during the opening months of the administration. Trump nominated him to become the permanent ICE director in November 2017, but Homan retired from federal service in June 2018 without receiving a Senate confirmation hearing.

Homan was an early advocate of separating children from caregivers as a deterrent to unauthorized border crossings. He raised the idea during the Obama administration with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who rejected it, and later recommended the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The policy prosecuted adults who crossed the border unlawfully and resulted in more than 5,000 children being separated from their parents in 2018. Homan defended the policy at a 2018 press conference and later testified before the House Oversight Committee in 2019.

After leaving federal service, Homan became a Fox News contributor and established Border 911, a nonprofit organization focused on educating the public about border security. He also wrote Defend the Border and Save Lives: Solving Our Most Important Humanitarian and Security Crisis, published in 2020.

Homan joined the Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow in 2022 and contributed to Project 2025, the organization's conservative policy blueprint. He also continued to speak publicly in favor of expanded immigration enforcement, workplace raids, and large-scale deportations.

Donald Trump announced Homan as his border czar in November 2024, and Homan assumed the White House role when the second Trump administration began. The informal position covers coordination of border security, interior immigration enforcement, and deportation policy across agencies including ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Homan reports directly to Trump and does not require Senate confirmation.

Homan has said that immigration enforcement should prioritize people who threaten public safety and national security, while also maintaining that people in the United States without legal authorization should not feel comfortable. He has supported workplace immigration raids and said families facing deportation could be removed together. In January 2026, Trump sent him to Minneapolis to oversee a federal immigration operation after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during protests. Homan met with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and later announced the withdrawal of 700 federal agents following cooperation between local and federal officials.

A federal bribery investigation examined a September 2024 meeting in which undercover FBI agents posing as contractors presented Homan with a paper bag containing $50,000. The inquiry considered whether the meeting involved a promise to help secure government contracts if Trump returned to office. Homan said he had done nothing criminal, while the White House denied that he took the money.

The Justice Department closed the investigation in 2025, citing insufficient evidence that Homan had agreed to perform specific official acts in exchange for money. A nonprofit organization later sued the Department of Justice seeking release of recordings connected to the investigation.