Trump Announces Immigration Official Tom Homan as 'Border Czar'

(FILES) Tom Homan, former Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement speaks to supporters of former US President Donald Trump during a rally at the Banks County Dragway on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
(FILES) Tom Homan, former Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement speaks to supporters of former US President Donald Trump during a rally at the Banks County Dragway on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
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Trump Announces Immigration Official Tom Homan as 'Border Czar'

(FILES) Tom Homan, former Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement speaks to supporters of former US President Donald Trump during a rally at the Banks County Dragway on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
(FILES) Tom Homan, former Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement speaks to supporters of former US President Donald Trump during a rally at the Banks County Dragway on March 26, 2022 in Commerce, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

President-elect Donald Trump says that Tom Homan, his former acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, will serve as “border czar” in his incoming administration.
“I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation’s Borders," he wrote late Sunday on his Truth Social site.
Homan was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border and Trump’s pledge to launch the largest deportation operation in the country's history, The Association Press said.
In addition to overseeing the southern and northern borders and “maritime, and aviation security,” Trump said Homan “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin,” a central part of his agenda.
He says he had “no doubt” Homan “will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”
Such a role does not require Senate confirmation.
In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Homan said the military would not be rounding up and arresting immigrants in the country illegally and that 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."
Earlier this year at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, Homan expressed frustration at the news coverage of a mass deportation operation.
“Wait until 2025,” he said, adding that, while he thinks the government needed to prioritize national security threats, “no one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”
He also said: “you’ve got my word. Trump comes back in January, I’ll be in his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”



Ukraine Pushes for NATO Invite 30 Years after Failed Nuclear Deal

 Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)
Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Pushes for NATO Invite 30 Years after Failed Nuclear Deal

 Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)
Russia's T-72 tank drives during military drills held at a firing range amid Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the southern Krasnodar region, Russia, December 2, 2024. (Reuters)

Ukraine on Tuesday blasted an agreement struck 30 years ago under which it relinquished nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances that never materialized, as it makes a concerted push for an invitation to join the NATO alliance.

Kyiv is desperately calling for robust security guarantees to protect it from renewed Russian aggression as US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House raises fears of a rapidly-struck settlement to the war that would leave it exposed.

Ukraine's foreign ministry pointed to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum which saw Kyiv give up the world's third largest nuclear arsenal in return for security assurances, including from Russia, after the 1991 Soviet breakup.

"Today, the Budapest Memorandum is a monument to short-sightedness in strategic security decision-making," the ministry wrote in a statement, marking this week's anniversary of the Dec. 5, 1994, agreement.

It said the agreement "should serve as a reminder to the current leaders of the Euro-Atlantic community that building a European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine's interests, rather than taking them into consideration is destined to failure".

Ukraine has denounced the memorandum since 2014, long before the 2022 invasion, when Russian troops seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula before backing paramilitary proxies in the east.

The fighting in Ukraine's east, which killed thousands, was brought to an uneasy ceasefire followed by dozens of rounds of talks under what was known as the Minsk agreements.

Even after almost three years of all-out war, Kyiv has balked at the prospect of a return to similar negotiations that could see a temporary ceasefire but leave open the prospect of a new Russian invasion.

"Enough of the Budapest Memorandum. Enough of the Minsk Agreements. Twice is enough, we cannot fall into the same trap a third time. We simply have no right to do so," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.

Kyiv wants NATO members to issue an invitation at a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers that starts on Tuesday, as the invasion grinds toward its three-year mark and Russia makes battlefield gains.

The foreign ministry statement called on the United States and Britain, also signatories to the 1994 memorandum, as well as France and China, which it said also acceded to it, to support the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine.

"We are convinced that the only real guarantee of security for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine's full membership in NATO," it said.

Russia sees the idea of Ukraine's integration into NATO as anathema and says it is an unacceptable security threat.