Thomas Homan, Trump's top immigration enforcer, resigns

Alan Gomez | USA TODAY

Thomas Homan, who has headed President Trump's efforts to ramp up immigration arrests and crack down on so-called sanctuary cities, announced on Monday that he is leaving the administration and retiring.

Homan was one of Trump's first appointments in January 2017, tapped to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as its agents were ordered to round up more undocumented immigrants living throughout the U.S. Homan did just that, increasing the number of arrests in his first year, and winning repeated praise from Trump.

But Homan has been serving as an interim director, with Trump only nominating him to permanently lead the agency in November. Homan has been facing a difficult road to Senate confirmation over his agency's aggressive enforcement actions, its battles with local governments over their role in immigration enforcement, and the increase of arrests of undocumented immigrants without a criminal record.

Eighteen Democratic senators sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security last week, asking why the administration took nearly 10 months to officially nominate an ICE director. And they asked why the department had not answered its questions of Homan’s handling of ICE, when the agency was "making radical – and in some cases possibly illegal – changes in immigration enforcement and practices."

“We understand that the Trump Administration may be concerned about Mr. Homan answering questions under oath about his leadership of ICE, as well as the possibility that Mr. Homan’s nomination could be defeated in the Senate,” the senators wrote.

The agency said Homan had been planning to retire for months, and stayed only at the request of John Kelly, the president's chief of staff and former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. In a statement, Homan called his decision to retire "bittersweet" but long overdue after 34 years working for the federal government.

"I am humbled and inspired by the 20,000 American patriots who serve this agency and protect our nation, increasingly in the face of unfair and false criticism from politicians and the media," Homan said. "Because of their tremendous dedication and hard work, we have made significant progress this past year in enforcing our nation’s immigration and customs laws, and in protecting public safety and national security."

Homan led what has been the biggest change in immigration under the Trump administration. The president's travel ban has been stuck in the courts for months, and his signature border wall has not been built because Congress, and Mexico, have been unwilling to pay for it.

But through ICE arrests, Trump has been able to increase immigration enforcement unilaterally with no changes needed from Congress.

Trump long complained that former President Obama placed too many restrictions on ICE agents, only allowing them to target undocumented immigrants with criminal records and other national security concerns. Trump was able to reverse that by issuing presidential memorandum that "unshackled" ICE agents.

Homan implemented that quickly, issuing a set of directives that made virtually all of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants potential targets for arrest.

Over the first few months of the Trump administration, total arrests were up, including those of undocumented immigrants who only had immigration violations on their record. ICE agents have been targeting more worksites, where they are targeting both undocumented workers and business owners who hire them.

Homan also was one of the administration's most vocal critics of so-called "sanctuary cities," local governments that limit their cooperation with federal immigration agents. Homan has been especially critical of leaders in California, who have fought back hard against the president's enforcement actions.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen credited Homan with increasing immigration arrests by 40% under his tenure, arresting more members of the MS-13 gang that Trump has worried about so much, and improving agency morale.

"Tom is a patriot and a true public servant who has consistently put service before self," Nielsen said in a statement. "He has made my predecessors and myself better secretaries, faithfully upholding the Constitution and executing ICE’s law enforcement mission."

Immigration advocates, however, are thrilled to see Homan go. Lynn Tramonte, deportation defense coordinator for America's Voice, a group that advocates for immigrants, said Homan's tenure will be remembered as a dark one designed to instill fear in the hearts of immigrants, their children and their families.

"This is a guy who really seem to love breaking apart families and bragging about it on Fox News," she said. "He seemed to think that the more outrageous his agents can be, the better it is to scare immigrants. That's a policy our government embraces now.

"We're glad to see him gone."