Did Obama used ICE with Tom Homan ?
Executive summary
Yes—Tom Homan was a senior, career ICE official whom the Obama administration appointed to a top enforcement role in 2013, but he was not the head (director) of ICE under President Obama; he rose to acting ICE director only after the Trump inauguration and became a public face of the Trump-era expansion of removals [1] [2] [3].
1. Obama’s use of Homan: an enforcement role, not the directorship
The public record shows that in 2013 the Obama administration appointed Thomas (Tom) Homan as Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a senior career post that put him in charge of the agency’s deportation arm, and the administration later gave him a Presidential Rank Award for his service [1] [2] [4]. Multiple outlets summarize the same distinction: Homan was a senior, influential career official within ICE during Obama’s second term, responsible for enforcement operations, but he did not serve as ICE director until January 2017, when the incoming Trump administration made him acting director [1] [3].
2. What “used ICE with Tom Homan” has meant in practice
Under the Obama administration, ICE’s enforcement under leaders like Homan focused heavily on removing individuals with criminal histories and on keeping deportation targets tied to law-enforcement priorities—policies contemporaneous reporting and later fact-checks attribute to that period [5] [2]. Reporting also documents that ICE carried out large numbers of removals while Homan led ERO, with some of the highest annual figures occurring in those years, which is the basis for claims that the Obama administration “used” ICE aggressively—particularly against noncitizens with criminal convictions [3] [4].
3. Continuity and change: why the question fuels debate
The controversy around the phrasing “Obama used ICE with Tom Homan” arises because Homan’s enforcement posture and later public advocacy made him more visible under Trump, and critics point to continuity in deportation mechanics while defenders emphasize a difference in policy priorities: Obama-era directives emphasized prioritizing serious criminals and national-security threats, whereas the Trump administration broadened arrest criteria and pursued policies—like the “zero-tolerance” family separations—that Homan supported or helped operationalize once elevated to acting director [5] [1] [3]. Fact-checking coverage and profile pieces underscore that Homan’s career predates Trump, but his most controversial public acts and rhetoric occurred in the Trump era, which inflates perceptions that Obama “used” him in the same way Trump later did [5] [2].
4. Limitations in the record and how to read competing claims
Contemporary sources agree on the core facts—appointment to ERO in 2013, recognition for service, and later acting directorship under Trump—so assertions that Homan was an Obama-era ICE leader are partially true but often misstated when they imply he ran the agency under Obama [1] [2] [3]. Reporting notes ICE removals were high during the Obama years and that Homan played a central role in enforcement, but if the claim being evaluated is whether Obama “used ICE with Tom Homan” to carry out the same policies later associated with Trump, the sources show both continuity in personnel and a marked shift in policy breadth and public posture after January 2017 [5] [3]. This answer sticks to what the cited reporting establishes and does not venture beyond the available sources.