Incoming border czar Tom Homan to sanctuary cities: ‘Don’t test us’

Incoming border czar Tom Homan delivered a new stern warning to sanctuary cities Tuesday and proclaimed Texas a model for how the rest of the country should approach border enforcement.

Mr. Homan also defended President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for a major deportation effort and pushed back against critics who say it will terrorize communities.

Mr. Homan said if there is no interior enforcement, the border can’t be solved because illegal immigrants will continue to stream in, knowing all they have to do is make it across the boundary.

“There is going to be a mass deportation because we just finished a mass immigration crisis on the border,” he said.

Mr. Homan was at the border in Texas with Gov. Greg Abbott. They traveled to Eagle Pass, the site of a major clash between the Biden administration and the governor, who deployed National Guard troops to take over a public park the feds had been using as a staging ground for catch-and-release of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Abbott has also built the state’s own sections of border wall and placed razor wire along the Rio Grande and floating barriers in the river to deter illegal immigrants.

Mr. Homan called that a “model” for the rest of the border.

“illegal immigration in Texas is down 86%,” he said.

“You’re a national hero and you’re saving this nation,” he told the National Guard troops he and the governor visited.

Mr. Trump’s plans for mass deportations have angered immigration advocates and spurred a new round of defiance from sanctuary jurisdictions. Some have even floated more vigorous ideas about trying to run interference against federal immigration officers looking to step up deportations.

“Don’t test us,” Mr. Homan told the sanctuaries.

He said those that do run interference could bump up against a federal law that bans harboring illegal immigrants as a former of migrant smuggling.

Mr. Homan indicated the key targets for deportation will be illegal immigrants who challenged their deportations, went through court hearings and were ordered removed yet are defying those orders.

More than 1 million illegal immigrants with final orders of removal are believed to be at large in the U.S.

Mr. Homan also praised South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Mr. Trump’s pick to lead Homeland Security, as “the right person for the right time for the job.”

And Mr. Homan said Mr. Trump will finish the work he began in his first term.

“Game on,” Mr. Homan said.

Though Mr. Trump dubbed him border czar, Mr. Homan is in line to be the key figure in the new administration on immigration policy more broadly.

He ran U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the first Trump administration and has been a vehement critic of President Biden over the last four years.

“Joe Biden is the first president in the history of this nation who came into office and unsecured the border on purpose,” Mr. Homan said.

Mr. Biden has done a bit of a reversal this year, imposing new border controls that have both cut the number of illegal immigrants and shifted where some inadmissible aliens are entering.

ICE also announced this week that it increased deportations by 69% in the first half of this year.

Most of those additional removals stem from border enforcement. ICE’s arrest numbers were down 37% from January to June, compared to 2023.