In a stark shift in immigration policy, the incoming Trump administration has vowed to reinstate the controversial practice of detaining undocumented immigrant families, including those with children who are American citizens. Tom Homan, set to become President-elect Donald Trump’s “border czar”, made clear in a recent interview that not only will family detention centers be reopened, but parents will face deportation regardless of their kids’ citizenship status.
Return of a Contentious Policy
The resumption of family detentions marks a dramatic reversal from the Biden administration’s decision to end the practice in 2021 amid outcry from immigration advocates and health professionals. They had warned of the psychological harm inflicted on children held in these facilities, which at their peak under the first Trump administration held around 3,000 individuals.
For Homan, a key architect of Trump’s hardline immigration approach, restarting family detentions is central to fulfilling the campaign pledge to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants residing in the US. “We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” he stated matter-of-factly, envisioning “soft-sided tent structures” akin to those employed at the southern border during migrant surges.
A Wrenching Choice for Parents
Perhaps most jarring was Homan’s assertion that undocumented parents of US-born children will not be exempt from deportation. Given the government’s inability to expel American citizen minors, it would fall on parents to decide: leave the country with your children, or leave them behind in the US.
“Here’s the issue, you knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
– Tom Homan, Incoming White House Border Czar
This presents an agonizing dilemma for the many mixed-status families, forcing them to choose between uprooting their American children from their home country or splitting up their family – the very scenario that sparked moral outrage under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy that saw over 4,000 migrant children separated from their parents.
Specter of Past Controversies
Homan, who previously headed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was a driving force behind that family separation policy, which stands as one of the darkest chapters in recent US immigration history. His elevation now to a powerful White House role overseeing border issues signals the lengths the new administration is willing to go to crack down on undocumented immigrants.
While claiming any deportations would be “targeted” and aimed at those with criminal records, Homan also confirmed the return of controversial worksite ICE raids, acknowledging “employers are going to be upset.” The intention to expand detention capacity and enlist military support, even if only in auxiliary roles, points to the potential scale of the planned enforcement blitz.
Testing the Limits of Compassion
For an American public still processing the enduring impact of Trump-era immigration policies on separated families, the notion of detaining kids once more is likely to provoke impassioned debate. Homan’s insistence that “we can’t lose the faith of the American people” suggests an awareness of the political risks in pushing too far.
Yet his matter-of-fact discussion of constructing new family detention centers and compelling parents into heart-wrenching decisions is a sobering reminder of how quickly the boundaries of acceptable policy can shift. As the Trump administration prepares to test those limits anew, the question looms: in the name of immigration enforcement, how much is too much?
