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As President-elect Donald Trump begins filling key cabinet roles for his incoming administration, US experts and rights groups warn that his selections indicate a hardline stance on immigration.
Trump announced on Monday that Tom Homan, former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will serve as his “border czar,” while reports suggest longtime adviser Stephen Miller will take on the role of deputy chief of staff for policy.
Homan and Miller previously shaped some of Trump’s most controversial immigration policies, including family separations at the US-Mexico border and the “Muslim ban”.
With Trump pledging the “largest deportation operation in American history” upon taking office in January, advocates believe these appointments suggest he aims to fulfil this campaign promise.
“They’ve learned some things since the last time they were in power,” said immigration lawyer Greg Siskind, referring to Homan and Miller.
“We’ll see whether they take a slower, more methodical approach to try and find ways around obstacles they ran into last time, or a bull-in-the-China-shop approach where they come in and just start breaking things,” he told reporters.
Throughout the election, Trump and his Republican allies criticised Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration, vowing to “close” the US-Mexico border and deport millions.
In his statement on Homan’s appointment, Trump praised him as “the best at policing and controlling our Borders” and said Homan would oversee deportations of “illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.”
Homan, who served as ICE director during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021, has been a strong advocate for the deportation of undocumented immigrants.
“I shut my phone off Friday night because I couldn’t handle the phone calls, the texts, and emails from thousands of ICE agents, Border Patrol agents, excited about the rumour I’m coming back,” he told FOX News on Monday.
He added, “And more important than that, thousands of retired agents, retired military, that want to come in and volunteer to help this president secure the border and do the deportation operation.”
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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