Thomas Homan, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will retire from his senior post within the Department of Homeland Security in June, two senior ICE officials confirmed Monday afternoon.
“He decided earlier this year. He informed DHS leadership at the end of January. They asked for him to stay on to assist with the transition,” an ICE spokesperson told the Washington Examiner by phone.
Homan had planned to make the big announcement Monday night at the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation’s ceremony where he is set to receive the Law Enforcement Leader of the Year award from the largest nonpartisan group of federal agents.
“It has been the honor of my life to lead the men and women of ICE for more than a year. The decision to leave federal service after more than 34 years is bittersweet, but my family has sacrificed a lot in order for me to serve and it’s time for me to focus on them,” Homan said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
Homan was originally set to retire 14 months ago, just as President Trump was settling into his first few days in office.
“He literally got called on the way out of his retirement party by Secretary [John] Kelly, ‘Will you stay on in an acting role until we find a nominee?'” an ICE spokesperson said.”
In January 2017, Trump demoted then-ICE director Daniel Ragsdale and nominated Homan to oversee the DHS agency tasked with carrying out interior enforcement operations, including the deportation of illegal immigrants. At the time, Homan was executive associate director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.
Homan has worked as a Border Patrol agent, special agent with the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and as a New York police officer, among other jobs.
Homan’s job was one of the most criticized in the Trump administration because he oversaw the deportation of illegal immigrants in the midst of the Justice Department’s face-off with nearly 500 sanctuary cities that wouldn’t cooperate with ICE to detain and turn over criminal aliens.
Homan said in a statement Monday the Trump administration has made “significant progress this past year in enforcing our nation’s immigration and customs laws, and in protecting public safety and national security.”
“I am humbled and inspired by the 20,000 American patriots who serve this agency and protect our nation, increasingly in the face of unfair and false criticism from politicians and the media,” he added.
As of Monday, ICE did not have any personnel announcements to share in light of the director’s planned retirement.
As a candidate, Trump promised to deport criminal illegal immigrants on his first day in office, and Homan’s work is evidence that he made that a priority. During the administration’s first 100 days, more than 41,000 illegal immigrants were arrested under Homan’s command of ICE.
Homan has taken on Trump’s tone on illegal immigration. In June, he told the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. illegally to “look over your shoulder” because he would not ignore some immigration policies as Obama or former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson had ordered.
In June 2016, Homan testified that deportation numbers were not down because there was no one to deport, but because of the Obama administration’s opposition to carrying them out.
