OPINION:
Tom Homan will replace Vice President Kamala Harris as the nation’s border czar come January.
As upgrades go, this is a big one. President-elect Donald Trump has selected Mr. Homan for the role because he has experience as a career Border Patrol agent and Immigration and Customs Enforcement official with a zero-tolerance policy toward entering the country illegally.
That’s what’s needed to deal with the more than 20 million people who hopped over the border illegally on the Biden administration’s watch. He will be assisted in this task by border hawk Stephen Miller, who will return to the White House as deputy chief of staff with a portfolio likely to include marshaling federal resources to ensure other agencies don’t get in the way of clearing out the most serious lawbreakers.
Currently, 15% of inmates in federal custody are foreign nationals — primarily from Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. That number, about 20,000, doesn’t include those being held by the Justice Department or U.S. Marshals Service. In his first term, Mr. Trump asked for the total number of illegal aliens incarcerated at taxpayer expense.
Some 102,148 illegal aliens were in federal custody, and 69,300 other noncitizens were held in the 45 states that released their prison data — a tally that leaves out California and the significant number of illegal aliens in jail there.
Now, add to this the 650,000 criminal aliens listed on ICE’s “non-detained docket” and the sizable number of readily deportable aliens. Among them are 14,944 killers, 60,628 thieves and 126,343 serious traffic offenders.
Defenders of the status quo will do anything they can to paint enforcing the law as a heartless exercise. A “60 Minutes” host asked Mr. Homan whether there’s a way to start removing these noncitizens without separating the children of illegal migrants from their parents. He deftly avoided taking the bait.
“Of course there is. Families can be deported together,” Mr. Homan replied.
Open-border enthusiasts will also have a hard time painting this as a racist endeavor when a majority of Hispanic men voted for the deportations.
On Monday, Rasmussen released a poll confirming the public’s top priority for the incoming president is dealing with illegal immigration. A New York Times/Siena College Poll before the election confirmed that two-thirds of Hispanics do not think Mr. Trump is referring to them when he talks about immigration — because he isn’t.
There’s little point in booting migrant felons only to have them come back a few weeks later. A comprehensive solution must include finishing the border wall and eliminating the incentives attracting illegal immigration in the first place.
There’s already progress on the latter front. Shortly after the election, New York Mayor Eric Adams realized which way the political wind was blowing and announced he was canceling a program handing debit cards to illegal aliens. Not bad, considering Mr. Trump hasn’t even been sworn in yet.
The same can’t be said for congressional Democrats, who vowed resistance over immigration. “This is going to be a very challenging time,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington. “We’re going to have to figure out how we fight that best.”
It’s a challenge because Mr. Trump is acting with a mandate. His decisive early moves underscore how serious the president-elect is about fulfilling his promises in the months ahead.
Let the deportations begin.
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