Trump says former Ice director Tom Homan will be in charge of borders and deportations
US president-elect 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 will 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 in charge of the deportation of illegal immigrants.
Homan, who served in Trump administration for a year and a half during his first term, is also a contender for secretary of homeland security.
Mass deportations – and housing migrants in camps – were a key part of Trump’s pitch on the campaign trail. Trump spoke favorably of Homan, telling Fox News host Harris Faulkner in July: “I have Tom Homan lined up, we have the greatest people.”
A Heritage fellow and Project 2025 author, Homan told this summer’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee he had “a message for the millions of illegal aliens who Joe Biden allowed to enter the country in violation of federal law – start packing, because you’re going home.”
At a panel on immigration policy in July, Homan said: “Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”
You can read more here:
Key events
The GOP took control of the Senate in last week’s elections, by winning Democratic-held seats in West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But ballots are still being counted in Pennsylvania, and Politico reports that Chuck Schumer, the Democrat who remains the Senate majority leader until the next Congress begins, is not inviting Republican David McCormick to new member orientation until his win is confirmed.
He is doing the same for Ruben Gallego, the Democratic Senate candidate in Arizona, where ballots are also still being counted, but Republicans are nonetheless calling foul over McCormick’s exclusion.
Here’s more, from Politico:
On Wednesday, Republican senators will vote for the next majority leader, who will begin serving in January. The three front-runners are Florida Sen. Rick Scott, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
When asked on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” who he would support for majority leader, McCormick told host Maria Bartiromo, “I’m still just now spending time with each of the candidates, and I will have an opportunity to vote this week.”
He added that he would not speak about the pros and cons of each candidate, but emphasized the need to be “in step with President Trump.”
In response to Schumer’s decision to prevent McCormick from participating, Republican politicians have been speaking out, including the majority leader-hopefuls.
“The idea that Schumer would not allow him to participate in Senate orientation is beyond unacceptable,” Thune wrote in a social media post Sunday. “The voters of Pennsylvania have spoken. Looking forward to having Dave’s strong voice in the Senate Republican Conference.”
Scott called the move “disgusting” and said, “They did the same thing to me after I beat a Democrat in 2018. We have to fight this!”
Cornyn called on Casey to concede and reposted a statement by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), which said: “I can’t think of another time when a senator-elect has been excluded from the Senate’s week-long orientation for new senators.”
McCormick argued that there’s no way Casey can gain enough votes at this point to defeat him.
“Mathematically, there’s no path for Senator Casey to win,” McCormick said on Fox. “Currently, I’m up by something like 40,000 votes, which is a very significant margin. And ultimately, Senator Casey’s going to have to decide when he’s willing to acknowledge that.”
Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over Donald Trump’s business fraud trial in New York that saw him convicted of 34 felonies earlier this year, will tomorrow decide whether to overturn the verdict, Reuters reports.
At issue is the supreme court ruling that gives presidents immunity for certain acts. Here’s more:
Justice Juan Merchan has said he will make his decision by Tuesday. It is the first of two pivotal choices that the judge must make after Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory. Merchan also must decide whether to go ahead with sentencing Trump on Nov. 26 as currently scheduled. Legal experts have said sentencing now is unlikely to happen ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
A favorable ruling by Merchan for Trump on the immunity question or a sentencing delay would pave the way for him to return to the White House largely unencumbered by any of the four criminal cases that once appeared to threaten his ambitions to win back the White House.
Officials at the U.S. Justice Department are assessing how to wind down the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith due to its longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president. A separate case in Georgia involving state criminal charges concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss remains in limbo.
Trump, 78, pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing in all four cases, which he portrayed as political persecutions by allies of Democratic President Joe Biden designed to thwart his campaign.
“It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement on Friday.
The case is the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to reach a verdict, and Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced on 26 November – though now that he is headed back to the White House, it is unclear if that will happen.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will both take part in ceremonies honoring Veterans Day today.
The presidents will host an event with veterans and members of the military at the White House at 9am, then head to Arlington national cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Harris will join him for that, and will be there for the speech he has scheduled for 11.15am at a cemetery amphitheater.
The UK’s defence secretary, John Healey, has said Donald Trump is expected to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes to prevail” over Russia, the PA news agency reports.
Healey said he believes the incoming administration will be “steadfast” in backing Kyiv, downplaying concerns that the US will turn away from Nato under the president-elect.
But he cautioned that any potential peace talks were for Ukraine alone to call after a senior Trump adviser suggested Washington would be focused on resolving the conflict rather than helping the country regain territory.
Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised.
The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer is meeting his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris today to discuss Ukraine on Armistice Day. My colleague Andrew Sparrow has more on the UK government’s relationship with Trump in this post in the UK politics blog.
EPA staff fear Trump will destroy how it protects Americans from pollution
After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump’s last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House.
When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a “little bit of the EPA” left “because you can’t destroy business”, prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency’s 50-year history.
“People are anxious and apprehensive, [and] we are preparing for the worst,” said Nicole Cantello, an EPA water specialist and president of AFGE Local 704, representing agency staff in the midwest.
“We’ve had a taste of what will happen and how we were targeted last time,” she said. “By the emails and texts I’m getting, a lot of people will leave. So many things could be thrown at us that it could destroy the EPA as we know it.”
Cantello said the union is already seeking to shield itself by departing its office at the agency’s Washington headquarters, ditching the use of EPA computers and divorcing union dues from the federal payroll system. “We have to try to protect our people by being independent of the agency,” she said. “But folks will have to take stock over whether they can endure the attacks that are going to come their way.”
Such anxiety stems from the experiences of the last Trump administration, which removed a broad sweep of environmental regulations and attempted to cut the agency’s budget by a third.
You can read the full story by my colleagues, Oliver Milman and Tom Perkins, here:
The US president, Joe Biden, and President-elect Donald Trump will meet on Wednesday at the White House on Biden’s invitation. Trump, 78, will take office on 20 January. Biden, who has accused Trump of attempting to undermine the US’s system of government, has said he is determined to ensure a smooth transition of power.
“At President Biden’s invitation, President Biden and President-elect Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“I’m going to see him on Wednesday,” Biden told reporters on Saturday, when asked whether Trump was a threat to democracy.
Biden, a Democrat, had initially sought reelection but dropped out of the race in July after a disastrous debate against Trump. His decision to stay in the race for so long – despite concerns about his cognitive functioning – left the party without enough time to hold an open primary, something some Democrats have blamed for Kamala Harris’ defeat in the presidential election.
Republicans edging closer to full control of the US Congress with party nearing House majority
Republicans are close to clinching control of the US House of Representatives, a critical element for Donald Trump to advance his political agenda when he returns to the White House in January.
The Republicans already have a majority in the Senate and need to win just a few seats to take control of the 435-member House (a party needs 218 seats to win a House majority). According to our latest tally, Republicans have 214 seats, while the Democrats have 203.
Keeping hold of the House would give Republicans sweeping powers to potentially enact a broad agenda of tax and spending cuts, energy deregulation and border security controls. As well as giving the party the power to initiate spending legislation, control of the House would allow Republicans to launch impeachment proceedings against officials.
Justo Robles
Many families risk being torn apart if Trump follows through with his mass deportation promise. My colleague Justo Robles reports on the devastating human cost this policy would have on millions of people across the US. Here is an extract from his story:
Immigration experts acknowledge that Trump’s notion will require major infrastructure, including new detentions camps, and they expect him to do what he says he plans to do.
“There are a lot of people in our community living in mixed-status families, so mass deportations are a direct threat,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a social justice law firm based in Los Angeles that serves people facing deportation.
She added: “The [2016] Trump administration has shown a disdain for immigrant children in the past, so it’s going to require organizers working with lawyers, working with communities, and we intend to challenge him in the courts”
Advocates warned that in his attempt to “secure the border”, Trump was likely to fulfill his pledge to restore many of his controversial immigration programs, such as the policy known as Remain in Mexico, which Joe Biden ended.
The program forced people seeking asylum in the US to wait in Mexico while their claims were processed. Between January 2019 and June 2021, 74,000 asylum seekers were sent back to Mexico, vulnerable to kidnapping, extortion and sexual violence.
“We believe that the program violated US law because of the lack of allowing people access to counsel, so we will continue to challenge that program,” Toczylowski said.
In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Tom Homan said the military would not be rounding up and arresting immigrants in the country illegally and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would move to implement Trump’s plans in a “humane manner”.
“It’s going to be a well-targeted, planned operation conducted by the men of ICE. The men and women of ICE do this daily. They’re good at it,” he said. “When we go out there, we’re going to know who we’re looking for. We most likely know where they’re going to be, and it’s going to be done in a humane manner.”
Trump has promised that his campaign pledge to expel millions of undocumented immigrants would be implemented come what may.
Trump says former Ice director Tom Homan will be in charge of borders and deportations
US president-elect 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 will 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 in charge of the deportation of illegal immigrants.
Homan, who served in Trump administration for a year and a half during his first term, is also a contender for secretary of homeland security.
Mass deportations – and housing migrants in camps – were a key part of Trump’s pitch on the campaign trail. Trump spoke favorably of Homan, telling Fox News host Harris Faulkner in July: “I have Tom Homan lined up, we have the greatest people.”
A Heritage fellow and Project 2025 author, Homan told this summer’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee he had “a message for the millions of illegal aliens who Joe Biden allowed to enter the country in violation of federal law – start packing, because you’re going home.”
At a panel on immigration policy in July, Homan said: “Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”
You can read more here:
NY congresswoman Elise Stefanik chosen by Trump to be new US ambassador to UN
The New York Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik has accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s offer to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a role once held by former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley.
Stefanik, a Trump-skeptic turned Trump-ally, is the House Republican Conference chair, making her the fourth-ranking House Republican.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement to the New York Post.
As my colleague Peter Stone notes in this profile on Stefanik, the 40-year-old was among the first House members to endorse Trump’s 2024 re-election bid and has mirrored Trump’s false claims about his 2020 defeat and the January 6 insurrection by his allies who attacked the Capitol.
“I am truly honored to earn President Trump’s nomination to serve in his Cabinet as US Ambassador to the United Nations,” Stefanik said in a statement confirming her acceptance of Trump’s offer.
“During my conversation with President Trump, I shared how deeply humbled I am to accept his nomination and that I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the United States Senate.”
“America continues to be the beacon of the world, but we expect and must demand that our friends and allies be strong partners in the peace we seek,” she added. An official announcement has not yet been made yet about the UN job, which is a role that comes with offices and a residence in New York.
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, has said the incoming US administration under Donald Trump should not be “pre-judged”. As we have been reporting, there is speculation that Trump may reduce military support to Kyiv in office, despite Ukrainian soldiers desperately needing weapons to fend off Russian attacks.
Trump has refused to elaborate when asked whether he thinks Zelenskyy should cede territory to Russia in negotiations to end the war, which he has characterised as a drag on American resources.
Stressing the need to continue supporting Kyiv, Barrot said Ukraine should determine the timing and conditions for engaging in any negotiation process.
Barrot told the Paris Peace Forum:
Facing the speculation on what could be the positions or initiatives of the new US administration, I think that we absolutely should not prejudge and we have to give it (the administration) time…
Ukraine, and beyond that the international community, would have too much to lose if Russia imposed the law of the strongest.
Palais de Chaillot, 7e édition du Forum de Paris sur la Paix (#PPF2024). Dans le cadre du panel consacré à l’Ukraine, sous le thème : “L’avenir de l’Ukraine à la croisée des chemins.” – La France, par l’intermédiaire de Jean-Noël Barrot, ministre de l’Europe et des Affaires… pic.twitter.com/mJKrCsoFBQ
— Dworaczek-Bendome (@DworaczekBendom) November 11, 2024
During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would end the war, but did not specify how. You can read more about how Trump might handle the war in Ukraine in this explainer.
France’s defence minister said on Sunday that Paris was sending a new batch of long-range missiles to Ukraine so it could strike behind Russian lines.
“President Volodymr Zelenskyy has met President-elect Donald Trump numerous times and I don’t doubt that a strong relationship will be established with the new administration,” Barrot said.
The claims and counter-claims over the disputed call come amid trepidation in Europe over Trump’s approach to Ukraine. This morning, the British and French leaders are meeting in Paris to observe Armistice Day events but will also be discussing the implications of Trump’s victory.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow is covering UK political news and reports on the UK defence secretary John Healey talking down the risk that Trump’s re-election poses to Ukraine rather than talking it up.
I don’t expect the US to turn away from Nato. They recognise the importance of the alliance. They recognise the importance of avoiding further conflict in Europe.
Healey said US support for Nato “goes back decades, and that has remained, including through the previous President Trump administration”. He also said Trump had “rightly” pushed for European nations to spend more on defence.
Meanwhile, away from the disputed call, the race for a new Senate majority leader is heating up, with three Republicans vying for the spot. Senator Rick Scott of Florida has so far won the support from Trump’s Maga camp, including from RFK Jr, Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk.
Donald Trump has yet to announce an endorsement himself, though he said on Sunday that he would want a new leader to conduct “recess appointments”, a controversial method of getting cabinet members into office quickly while temporarily sidestepping a lengthy Senate confirmation process.
Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukraine withdraw from swathes of its eastern and southern territory as a precondition to peace talks, Agence France-Presse reports.
Following Donald Trump’s election, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned there should be “no concessions” to Putin.
Ceding land or giving in to any of Moscow’s other hardline demands would only embolden the Kremlin and lead to more aggression, he said.
Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of US military and economic aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised.
You can read our report on the Kremlin’s denial here:
During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the Ukraine war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so.
According to the Washington Post’s report of the call the US president-elect advised the Russian leader not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”.
Kremlin denies reports of Trump-Putin call over Ukraine
Reuters has more on the Kremlin’s denial that a Trump-Putin call took place.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
This is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, it’s just false information. There was no conversation. This is the most obvious example of the quality of the information that is being published now, sometimes even in fairly reputable publications.”
Good morning, and welcome to our US politics blog as the Kremlin denies reports that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have discussed the Ukraine war in a phone call, dismissing it as “pure fiction”.
The Washington Post first reported that the call between the Russian leader and the US president-elect took place on Thursday.
On Monday morning, Reuters reported that Putin has no specific plans to speak to Trump at the present, according to his Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Here’s our report on the disputed call:
