Tom “The Hammer” Homan, the incoming border czar selected by President-elect Trump, is garnering more attention and approval as he steps into his new role. For the past four years, our southern border has been a persistent problem, and Homan appears to be the right person to address the issues and bring about change.
Another illustration of his suitability surfaced Friday, when the border czar gave an interview to NBC News detailing some of his plans.
During an exclusive interview at the U.S. southern border, Homan revealed a strategic plan to shut down the Darien Gap, a hazardous Panamanian jungle that serves as a passageway for hundreds of thousands of migrants heading north each year. This tactic aims to reduce the influx of Latin American migrants at a critical geographic bottleneck.
“It needs to happen,” he said. “Shutting down the Darien Gap is going to protect our national security. It’s going to save thousands of lives.”
This approach may help diminish the flow of migrants, although some individuals may find alternative routes, including using makeshift watercraft. It is evident that cutting off one path is just a part of the comprehensive solution needed to tackle the illegal immigration problem. Homan is not short of ideas, and while utilizing the military presents challenges, President Trump has a track record of exerting pressure on foreign leaders. Observing how Trump leverages diplomacy to persuade countries like Columbia and Panama to strengthen border control measures will be intriguing.
Homan, acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration and a former ICE agent himself, also acknowledged that Trump’s mass deportation plan would include “collateral arrests” — undocumented immigrants without criminal records who are discovered as ICE agents search for their targets.
Homan warned that workplace roundups would ramp up again soon after Trump takes office.
“We’re going to do it in a smart way,” he said. “We’re still working on how exactly we want to roll this out, but [work site] operations have to come back again because it’s the No. 1 place we find victims of forced labor being run by many cartels.”
One of the major draws for illegal immigrants, of course, is the chance of employment. That’s another major hole that needs to be fixed. There’s a legislative fix, or perhaps several. People who employ illegal immigrants are aggravating the problem, and need to be addressed as part of the problem.
