November 11, 2024

Trump says former ICE Director Tom Homan will be 'border czar'

WATCH: Who is Tom Homan, Trump’s new ‘border czar’?

Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan is going to be the "border czar" in the Trump administration, President-elect Donald Trump announced on Truth Social.

Homan, a staunch Trump supporter, will be in charge of the mass deportations that have been promised by Trump throughout his 2024 campaign.

"I've known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders," Trump wrote in his post on Sunday evening.

"Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin. Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job," Trump added.

Matt Rourke/AP, Files
Tom Homan speaks as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens at a primary election night party in Nashua, N.H., Jan. 23, 2024.

Homan said Trump's mass deportations is "going to be a targeted enforcement operation, concentrating on criminals and national security threats first."

He acknowledged that the deportations would be costly but argued the policy would "save the taxpayers a lot of money."

Homan said he does not plan to "separate women and children" but acknowledged that deporting alleged criminals would result in breaking up families.

"When we arrest parents here, guess what? We separate them. The illegal aliens should be no different," Homan said.

Homan also said worksite enforcement -- an aspect of immigration policy focused on unauthorized workers and employers who knowingly hire them -- is "going to get fired back up."

"Under President Trump, we're going to work it and we're going to work it hard," he said.

MORE: Trump transition live updates

Trump has railed against the Biden administration's immigration policies, in part claiming they have made America less safe, though statistics show that U.S.-born citizens are more than twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes than undocumented immigrants.

An estimated 11 million people are living in this country without legal immigration status.

If feasible, the cost to deport even 1 million undocumented immigrants a year would cost over $88 billion, for a total of $967.9 billion over more than 10 years, according to a report from the American Immigration Council.

ABC News' Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García, Peter Charalambous and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.