WASHINGTON: US president-elect Donald Trump said late Sunday he was bringing back hardline immigration official Tom Homan to oversee the country’s borders in the incoming administration. The 78-year-old Republican tycoon has pledged to launch — on day one of his presidency — the largest deportation operation of undocumented immigrants in US history. “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 posted on his social network Truth Social. “I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders.”

Trump said Homan will be in charge of “all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin”. Homan, who led immigration enforcement during part of Trump’s first administration, appeared at the Republican National Convention in July, telling supporters: “I got a message to the millions of illegal immigrants that Joe Biden’s released in our country: You better start packing now.”

Trump — who never conceded his 2020 loss — sealed a remarkable comeback to the presidency in the November 5 vote, cementing what is set to be more than a decade of US politics dominated by his hardline right-wing stance. He will not be inaugurated until January, and so far has only made one cabinet appointment, naming his campaign manager Susie Wiles — who he calls “ice baby” due to her supposedly unflappable temperament — as his White House chief of staff.

Late Sunday, Trump told the New York Post he has offered Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik the job of US ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik, in her fifth term in office, told the newspaper she had accepted the role and was “truly honored”.

Super-charge tensions

While the US government has struggled for years to manage its southern border with Mexico, Trump has super-charged concerns by claiming an “invasion” is underway by migrants he says will rape and murder Americans. During his campaign, he repeatedly railed against undocumented immigrants, employing violent rhetoric about those who “poison the blood” of the United States. In rally speeches, he wildly exaggerated local tensions and misled his audiences about immigration statistics and policy.

Violent crime, which spiked under Trump, has fallen in every year of President Joe Biden’s administration. Migrants commit fewer crimes proportionately than the native population, though foreign suspects have been named in a few high-profile cases of violent attacks on women and children, infuriating Republicans. The number of US border patrol encounters with migrants crossing over from Mexico illegally is now about the same as in 2020, the last year of Trump’s presidency, after peaking at a record 250,000 for the month of December 2023.

Trump vowed to tackle migrant gangs using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — which allows the federal government to round up and deport foreigners belonging to enemy countries — as part of a mass deportation drive he christened “Operation Aurora.” Aurora was the scene of a viral video showing armed Latinos rampaging through an apartment block that spurred sweeping, false narratives about the town being terrorized by Latin American migrants. Trump has similarly promoted the fictitious story that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating residents’ pets. — AFP