WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday named immigration hardliner Tom Homan, who has served nearly 10 months as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to run ICE on a permanent basis.

Homan has run the agency since Obama appointee Sarah Saldaña — the former U.S. attorney in Dallas — stepped down when Trump took office in January. He has been a public face of the administration's crackdowns on immigrants and border security, a tough-talking law enforcement careerist who is unapologetic about being "heartless" when it comes to deporting even the most sympathetic longtime U.S. residents.

"I get asked all the time, 'Why do you arrest somebody that has been here for 10 years, for 15 years in the USA and has kids?'" he said a month ago at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "If we keep sending this message, 'It's OK to violate the laws of this country and ... not be worried about enforcement,' then we're never going to solve the border crisis. ... It's never going to be solved as long as people think they get a free pass."

The White House announced the nomination with no fanfare, in a formal notice that Trump was sending Homan's name to the Senate. The president was flying from Manila to Hawaii on his way back to Washington after a 13-day Asia trip.

The White House had two more days to name a permanent ICE director before a deadline that would have blocked Homan for exercising authority any longer in an acting capacity. The nomination is subject to Senate approval.

Homan's performance as an advocate for Trump's policies made him briefly the subject of speculation for secretary of homeland security. But that vacancy, created when former Marine Gen. John Kelly took over as White House chief of staff, ended up going to a Kelly deputy.

Trump's "build that wall!" campaign rhetoric and warnings of "bad hombres" flowing across the southern border stood in sharp contrast to his predecessor's approach. In Homan, who has spent his career in law enforcement, including stints in Dallas and San Antonio as an immigration enforcer, he found an ally.

Homan often recounts the investigation he oversaw when 19 immigrants were found dead in a milk trailer in Victoria. The airless trailer, piled with bodies, was abandoned at a truck stop on May 14, 2003. There were 55 survivors. The driver was sentenced to 34 years in prison.

It was one of the nation's deadliest smuggling incidents, and Homan invokes it to illustrate the need for aggressive measures to halt human trafficking.

Flowers, teddy bears, water and rosary beads are among the items left in 2004 at the site where 19 illegal immigrants were found dead a year earlier inside of a tractor trailer parked at a truck stop on U.S. Highway 77 in south Victoria. (Frank Tilley / The Associated Press)

He has said repeatedly that when it comes to enforcement, "No one is off the table" — a far harsher approach than ICE took during the Obama era, when Saldaña, under the president's direction, put a priority on finding and deporting immigrants who had committed crimes other than entering the country illegally.

In July, he floated the possibility of charging mayors and other local leaders with violating anti-smuggling laws if they don't abandon "sanctuary city" practices that shield immigrants from federal enforcement efforts.

ICE oversees interior and workplace enforcement. At Heritage last month, Homan vowed to step up workplace enforcement by a magnitude of four or five, sending shudders through certain sectors.

Homan quickly emerged as an unusually visible presence for a sub-cabinet official.

The White House repeatedly used him to promote Trump's pressure on so-called sanctuary cities and executive orders tightening enforcement in numerous ways.

"When some law enforcement agencies fail to honor detainers or release serious criminal offenders, they — it undermines ICE's ability to protect public safety and carry out its mission. Most work with us, but many don't in the largest cities, and that is where criminal aliens and criminal gangs flourish," Homan said as the guest star at one June press briefing at the White House.

"It is safer for everyone if we take custody of an alien in a controlled environment of another law enforcement agency as opposed to visiting an alien's residence, place of work or other public area. Arresting a criminal in the safety, security and privacy of the jail is the right thing to do."

Homan's 33-year career in law enforcement includes stints as a New York City police officer and a Border Patrol Agent. He has worked as a special agent for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a now defunct agency whose functions were transferred to ICE and other elements of the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003, when he became assistant agent in charge of ICE's Dallas office. He has been at headquarters in Washington since 2009.

At Heritage, Homan acknowledged that he's often accused of being "heartless," but defended recent operations aimed at parents.

"Do I feel bad about the plight of some of these people? ... Absolutely," he said, "but I got a job to do and, if we don't do that job, it is only going to get worse."