Donald Trump’s incoming border czar says he’s “all for” undocumented immigrants doing his job for him and self-deporting.
Tom Homan appeared Monday on Fox News’ Hannity, where host Sean Hannity asked whether he would consider a “grace period” for undocumented immigrants to turn themselves in for deportation, and then eventually be allowed to apply to return to the U.S. legally.
“Criminals and gang members get no grace period,” Homan replied. “We know who you are and we’re gonna come and find you… We’re coming for you.”
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But if “non-criminals” want to leave voluntarily, he’s “all for it,” Homan said. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants don’t commit crimes.
“When you self-deport, they can put everything in order: their family business, if they got homes or whatever,” Trump’s former acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. “They can put all that in order and leave with their family all together.”
It’s not clear what would happen to those homes or businesses, and Homan didn’t specify whether self-deporting would grant some type of amnesty that would let people apply to re-enter the U.S. in the future.
Homan was the chief architect of one of Trump’s central campaign promises to deport up to 11 million undocumented immigrants and contributed to the far-right Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term. He has famously said it’s possible to carry out mass deportation without splitting up families by simply deporting whole families.
That would mean deporting an estimated 4.4 million U.S. citizens living with their undocumented parents, according to data from the American Immigration Council.
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