How did ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations perform under Thomas Homan during the Obama years?
Executive summary
Thomas (Tom) Homan served as ICE’s executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) beginning in 2013, building and running the agency’s criminal‑alien removal apparatus and earning high marks from both colleagues and the Obama administration for aggressive removals [1] [2] [3]. Under his leadership ERO emphasized targeting convicted criminals and building operational capacity, even as broader Obama‑era deportation totals and counting methods drew criticism for removing many non‑criminals [4] [5].
1. Background: who Homan was inside ERO and when he led it
Homan rose through Border Patrol and ICE ranks to become executive associate director of ERO in 2013, a senior operational post that put him in charge of identifying, arresting, detaining, and removing noncitizens who met the Department’s enforcement priorities [1] [2] [4]. The position gave him authority to create field teams, set tactical priorities and testify before Congress about how ERO worked with partners such as Customs and Border Protection [4].
2. Enforcement priorities and operational changes under his watch
Homan publicly framed ERO’s mission as focused on convicted felons, significant or multiple misdemeanants, gang members and recent border crossers, and he oversaw the creation of mobile teams—like Mobile Criminal Alien Teams (MCATs)—and fugitive operations to augment removals of those priorities [4]. His written testimony and public statements repeatedly emphasized criminal‑alien enforcement as the organizing principle of ERO operations during his tenure [4].
3. What the numbers and contemporaneous reporting show
Assessments that cover the Obama years put Homan inside an era of very high removals: the Obama administration oversaw roughly 2.4 million removals from 2009–2016, a record total that contextualizes ERO’s aggressive posture while he led its enforcement arm [5]. The reporting assembled here credits Homan with building operational capacity and methods that produced large removal counts and frequent arrests, and colleagues and press accounts describe him as effective at deportations [6] [3] [1].
4. Recognition and internal praise
Homan received institutional recognition during the Obama administration, including a Presidential Rank Award in 2015, signaling high-level approval of his ERO performance [1] [3]. Media profiles and peers noted his operational competence and toughness as reasons he was entrusted with running ERO and later elevated into acting ICE director under the next administration [3] [7].
5. Critiques and limits to the “effective” label
Performance measured strictly by removals and arrests drew controversy: independent summaries of the period note that a substantial share of deportations during the Obama years involved people with no criminal convictions or only minor charges, and critics argued counting changes and policy choices helped swell totals [5]. While Homan emphasized criminal‑alien priorities in testimony and internal strategy, broader ICE statistics and critics point to removals beyond that narrow category, a tension between stated policy and aggregate outcomes that the available reporting highlights [4] [5].
6. Reading the record: balance between capacity and controversy
The record assembled here shows Homan strengthened ERO operational capacity, pursued criminal‑alien removals as a stated priority, and was rewarded inside government for producing removals; at the same time, agency‑wide results during the era included large numbers of non‑criminal removals and prompted debate about counting, discretion, and community impacts—an ambiguity that complicates a simple “success” label [4] [1] [5]. Sources document both institutional praise and public criticism, leaving a clear conclusion: Homan ran an ERO that was operationally effective at removals and enforcement but that effectiveness coexisted with contentious outcomes and contested metrics [3] [6] [5].