The Trump administration was on the brink of a major immigration showdown last week in Newark, the first in a blue state since its botched operation in Minneapolis early this year.
By Thursday, the White House had dispatched Tom Homan to meet with state and local officials, just as it did when tensions in Minnesota boiled over. The administration helped secure the Delaney Hall detention site, and the border czar met with local Democrats and state police, claiming later they agreed to most of his demands, including establishing protest zones. Democrats said the Department of Homeland Security fulfilled their ask to restore family visitation to the detention facility.
“We all figured Tom was gonna come out with a compromise solution,” said an administration official, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Whether the relative calm holds is yet to be seen, but the decision to deploy Homan reflects a playbook the administration is increasingly relying on to respond to heightened unrest. And it underscores the border czar’s enduring influence inside the Trump administration as one of the president’s top aides on immigration policy.
Serving as an adviser to both the president and DHS, the 40-year veteran of immigration enforcement has emerged as a central figure in navigating politically sensitive immigration disputes in blue states. Often sidelined during top-level DHS enforcement strategy discussions during former Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure, he has become the administration’s preferred envoy for negotiating with Democratic officials when resistance to the president’s immigration agenda intensifies.
People close to the White House note that Homan, who was awarded a presidential rank award for his work as a top immigration official under former President Barack Obama, has street credibility with Democrats in a way other top Trump officials do not. The White House tapped him in Minneapolis to take over the operation after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents, and he was also one of the top officials negotiating immigration funding on Capitol Hill, even though the White House and Democrats ultimately failed to reach a deal.
“Where Stephen Miller is tied at the hip to somebody like Trump — so they’re not going to negotiate with Miller — Democrats may be more willing to have some kind of conversations with Homan,” said a Republican close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak about the dynamic.
The administration has shifted its approach to immigration enforcement since the Minneapolis surge earlier this year went awry. DHS has new leadership, officials have moved away from the flashy, high-profile raids that drew national attention and bipartisan criticism and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has abandoned many of the controversial Noem-era policies. But the unrest at the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark underscores that despite that recalibration, opposition to the president’s immigration agenda is still simmering, particularly in Democratic strongholds where local officials and activists remain eager to challenge enforcement actions.
Still, as local officials announced Thursday that they plan to scale back local police presence outside of Delaney Hall, Homan made a public threat to bring in the National Guard, which could further escalate tensions.
“You got to do your public safety job,” Homan said on Fox News. “And If you don’t, President Trump has no problem deploying the National Guard up here.”
Last week, images and videos surfaced showing violent clashes between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outside of Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed, privately run immigration detention facility, amid allegations about poor conditions and a detainee hunger strike. Democratic lawmakers showed up at the facility, criticizing detention conditions and accusing agents of violence against demonstrators. Mullin added more fuel to the fire when he threatened to pull customs staff from Newark Liberty International Airport, a warning that, according to three administration officials granted anonymity to speak candidly, shocked some inside the administration and spurred fears of travel chaos throughout the airline industry.
Homan spent five days on the ground, meeting with Democratic local and state officials, as well as local law enforcement to discuss options for quelling protests. He showed up at Delaney Hall and ate spaghetti with detainees, in a bid to counter allegations of “unsanitary” conditions.
He said this week that he met with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the head of police, state troopers and also had several calls with Gov. Mikie Sherrill.
“From the minute I walked in and talked with the mayor and the chief of police, I said ‘we need you to stop traffic to the area … we need you to put protest areas so they can peacefully protest,’” Homan said on Fox. “We need law enforcement to do their public safety job because up until that time, they were not responding to 911 calls from our officers being attacked. So I left that meeting with about 70 percent of what I wanted, but within a couple of hours, we got everything we wanted.”
New Jersey Democrats have also claimed credit for helping defuse the volatile situation. Sherrill sent State Police to anti-ICE protests in Newark in an effort to “lower the temperature” and avoid further federal intervention. Many of these announcements came after Homan arrived in town: a day after he touched down, Sherrill announced a plan to establish protest zones. A curfew was also announced last weekend, which has since been lifted.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson pointed to Homan’s decades of law enforcement experience and “proven track record” in helping deliver on the president’s vow to deport unauthorized immigrants. She said “time and time again he has proven how effective he is at advancing” the president’s agenda across the country, “working with both Democrat and Republican local officials.”
Democrats, including Baraka, are reluctant to give Homan much credit for easing tensions on the White House’s behalf. He acknowledged that Homan advocated for a greater local police presence and in recent days, the State Police and then the Newark Police stepped in to keep protesters away from Delaney Hall. But the Democratic mayor of New Jersey’s largest city rejected the idea that Homan influenced his decisions.
“He asked us to do things that we refused to do,” Baraka said Tuesday during a press conference. “Ultimately, our decisions, us being out front in Delaney Hall, has nothing to do with Tom Homan.”
Homan is a complicated figure for Democrats, still viewed as one of the architects of the Trump administration’s family separation policy and one of the most vocal advocates of the president’s vow to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. But Trump aides and allies also argue out of anyone, his immigration expertise — and lack of broader political ambitions — best positions him to negotiate with the left.
“I think that for a lot of people, he’s kind of the poster person for the mass deportation agenda. But for him this is not an ideological thing, or a political thing. It’s a mission that shouldn’t be politicized at all. He was respected by people, senior politically appointed people under the Obama administration,” said a second person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
“For him, it’s a very clear cut mission, and there are common sense, operational needs and he feels that he can get people to understand that.”
Ry Rivard and Dasha Burns contributed to this report.
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