Newly elected US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), will be in charge of the country’s borders in his new administration.

Homan’s areas of control include “the southern border, the northern border, all maritime and aviation security,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. Trump added that “border czar” Homan will be responsible for the deportation of illegal immigrants.

Homan, who served in the Trump administration for a year and a half during his first term, is also a candidate for secretary of homeland security.

Mass deportations – and the housing of migrants in camps – were a key part of Trump’s campaign. Trump spoke positively about Homan, telling Fox News host Harris Faulkner in July: “I have Tom Homan lined up, we have the best people.”

Homan, a Heritage Fellow and author of Project 2025, told this summer’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee that he had “a message for the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden allowed into the country in violation of federal law — start packing, because you’re going home.”

During a panel on immigration policy in July, Homan said: “Trump is coming back in January, I will be on his heels when he comes back, and I will lead the largest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

Homan also reportedly accepted an invitation to a white nationalist conference hosted by Nick Fuentes, the Holocaust denier and Hitler admirer who dined with Trump and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

On Thursday, Homan told Fox News that he had “not politicized or asked for a Cabinet position,” and that no offer had been made. But he added: “President Trump knows if he needs help securing the border I support. If he needs help carrying out a deportation operation, I am ready.”

The newly elected president will meet with potential candidates for his government before his inauguration as president on January 20.

CNN reported Sunday that Trump had offered Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik the job as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

With Reuters