From Obama award to Minnesota op: Why Trump tapped Tom Homan for on-the-ground crackdown

Minneapolis is the Trump administration’s latest immigration flashpoint — and  a familiar figure is on the ground, taking command of the federal operation after two fatal shootings and days of agitators sparking heightened protests in the Twin Cities. 

Border Czar Tom Homan, a career law enforcement official with more than four decades in immigration enforcement, has worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations — including formal recognition during the Obama era. Allies say that résumé undercuts any claims he’s a partisan operator and makes him an ideal choice to take the lead in Minneapolis. 

"Tom Homan is a decorated career law enforcement professional whose service has spanned multiple presidential administrations, both Republican and Democratic. He is a no-nonsense American patriot who is dedicated to making his country better. So I have every bit of confidence that Tom is the right person for the job," America First Legal president Gene Hamilton said in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

"People know exactly who they are dealing with when they deal with Tom Homan. He's a known entity," Hamilton continued. 

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Hamilton worked on immigration policy during Trump’s first term and alongside Homan, and he told Fox News Digital that Homan is the right fit to oversee the Minnesota operation because of his law-and-order approach and record across administrations. Hamilton is now president of America First Legal, after previously working as Trump’s deputy White House counsel during the first half of 2025.

Homan was deployed to the Gopher State on Monday, effectively replacing Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and is reporting directly to President Donald Trump as he takes the helm of the administration's immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities. His leadership over the operation follows a pair of high-profile shootings involving federal law enforcement that left two Americans dead, and Democrats calling the deaths "murder" while pointing to ICE as a modern-day "Gestapo."

"Tom Homan is a patriot with decades of experience effectively protecting American communities and deporting criminal illegal aliens," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said when asked about Homan taking the helm of the mission. 

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A White House official told Fox News Digital amid the Minnesota leadership shakeup that the administration "has not wavered" from its mission to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, with one official saying that Trump wanted to prevent further violence and work with state and local leaders to remove public safety threats.

Democrats have slammed the broader ICE crackdown as heavy-handed, calling for investigations and tighter restrictions on enforcement tactics after agitators Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by law enforcement this month. Senate Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has echoed that criticism, calling what’s unfolding in Minnesota "appalling" and pressing for new oversight and guardrails on ICE’s conduct as the Trump administration insists the mission remains unchanged and focused on law and order.

"The Trump Administration will never waver in standing up for law and order and protecting the American people," Jackson added in her comment on Homan. 

Homan launched his federal law enforcement career in 1984 as a Border Patrol agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was abolished after 9/11 and replaced with the Department of Homeland Security. His rise through the ranks of federal law enforcement included former President Barack Obama tapping him to lead ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in 2013. 

Hamilton continued that Homan is not a partisan actor, but focused on delivering lawful deportation results – as he's done for a Democrat administration. 

"Tom Homan's mission is not partisan. It's not political," Hamilton continued in his comments on Homan. "The only people who are making it political are the officials in Minnesota who have turned this into a rallying cry for agitators, who are more committed to rioting and impeding federal law enforcement in the streets of Minneapolis than, quite frankly, anything we've seen In recent history."

Chad Wolf, acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during President Trump’s first term, authored an op-ed for Fox News Digital that described Trump tapping Homan to oversee the operation as a "stroke of absolute genius." 

"Homan is not a political firebrand looking for headlines. He is a career law enforcement professional, with over 30 years of experience at ICE and U.S. Border Patrol, who understands the operational realities of immigration enforcement," Wolf wrote. "Sending him to Minnesota is not about provocation; it is about restoring coherence to a situation that has grown dangerously fragmented."

DHS data show deportations surged under Obama, including a record 438,421 removals in fiscal year 2013, fueling a "deporter in chief" label activists used to describe the 44th president. 

In 2016, Obama awarded Homan the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service, an honor recognizing leaders who produce "sustained extraordinary results."

"Thomas Homan deports people. And he’s really good at it," the Washington Post wrote in an article at the time reporting on the award. 

"Homan is the Washington bureaucrat in charge of rounding up, detaining and kicking illegal immigrants out of the country," the article continued. "As Americans fight over whether the next president should build a wall on the Mexico border to keep migrants out or protect millions of them from deportation, Homan is actually hunting undocumented immigrants down right now, setting strategy for 8,000 officers on the front lines."

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Fast-forward to that campaign cycle electing Trump to his first term, Homan was again tapped to help tackle immigration for the Republican president's administration, serving as the acting director in 2017 and 2018. 

Now, the border czar is vowing he won't leave the Twin Cities "until the problem is gone." 

Homan publicly suggested that ICE could pull back from direct action in the community if local leaders allow federal agents access to jails to take custody of removable immigrants in a controlled setting, a proposal that effectively turns Minnesota into a test case for whether sanctuary-style resistance can be traded for cooperation on detainers.

He met with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after arriving to the state, calling the interactions "productive" as he looks to pull back the number of federal agents on the streets to focus on deporting illegal aliens detained in jails. 

"More agents in the jail means less agents in the street," Homan said Thursday. "This is common-sense cooperation that allows us to draw down on the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it: draw down the number of people here because we have the efficiency, the safety of the jails and the prisons."