Tom Homan worked at ICE under Obama and also Trump
Executive summary
Tom (Thomas D.) Homan is a career immigration enforcement official who held senior ICE roles during the Obama administration and then served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the early Trump administration; he was executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations under Obama and acting ICE director from January 2017 to June 2018 [1] [2] [3]. Some viral posts have overstated that he was “ICE chief” under Obama; the record shows he was a senior enforcement official rather than ICE director during the Obama years [4] [5].
1. Career continuity: a senior enforcement official across two presidencies
Homan rose through ICE’s enforcement ranks and in 2013 was appointed executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, a senior post in which he oversaw deportation and removal efforts during the Obama administration, earning a Presidential Rank Award in 2015 for that service [1] [5]. That background explains why several outlets and profiles describe him as an Obama-era official who later became a visible face of Trump’s enforcement push [6] [2].
2. Acting ICE director under Trump: dates and duties
President Trump installed Homan as acting director of ICE on January 30, 2017, and Homan served in that acting-director role through June 2018, presiding over a period of escalated enforcement and public advocacy for broader arrests and removals [3] [7]. During that tenure Homan publicly backed and helped advise on aggressive policies associated with the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” approach, and he was formally nominated by Trump for the permanent ICE director post in November 2017, though he retired in mid‑2018 [3] [1].
3. What “served under Obama” means — clarifying titles and viral ambiguity
Multiple sources confirm Homan worked inside ICE during the Obama administration and held enforcement leadership, but he was not ICE director under Obama; claims that he was the agency’s top chief during Obama are fact-checked as inaccurate [4] [5]. The distinction matters: “executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations” is a powerful operational job within ICE but is distinct from the agency director role that he only occupied in an acting capacity under Trump [1] [2].
4. Policy continuity and escalation: why his Obama-era role matters
Reporting and profiles trace a policy throughline in Homan’s career: he embraced robust enforcement of immigration law while at ICE under Obama and carried that enforcement philosophy into the Trump era, where he advocated for broader arrest authority and was linked to recommendations that informed family-separation components of zero-tolerance [6] [3]. Observers note that Homan’s operational experience made him a natural pick to implement a more expansive enforcement agenda once political direction changed [6] [1].
5. Disputes, reputational framing, and partisan narratives
Different outlets frame Homan either as a career bureaucrat who simply executed policy or as an architect of harsher measures; fact checks stress accuracy about specific titles while political coverage emphasizes his role in Trump-era policies and public confrontations with critics [4] [8]. Some conservative outlets describe him as an Obama appointee who was later “unleashed” in the Trump administration, while critical reporting highlights his involvement with policies that led to widespread condemnation and Congressional scrutiny [9] [6].
6. Bottom line
The factual record supports the concise claim: Homan served in senior ICE enforcement roles during the Obama administration and then served as acting ICE director in the first Trump administration from January 2017 to June 2018; however, he was not ICE director under Obama — he was a top enforcement associate director whose operational record under Obama preceded his acting directorship under Trump [1] [3] [4].