JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump's administration is starting to take shape. Tom Homan will serve in a position that Trump is calling border czar, and he's expected to tap longtime adviser Stephen Miller for the role of deputy chief of staff for policy. Neither of these positions need Senate confirmation, but both men would play roles in defining immigration policy, including executing Trump's vision for unprecedented mass deportations. NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd joins us now. Hey there.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: So, Jasmine, let's start off with border czar. What can you tell us about Tom Homan and his track record and what we might expect from him?
GARSD: So Homan started off leading removal operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, during the Obama administration, which oversaw a record number of deportations. Trump named him acting director of ICE pretty early on in his last administration. And he was one of the architects of the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy, which was when thousands of families were separated at the border. That policy was extremely controversial. Eventually, it was rescinded by the Justice Department. Some - about a thousand children have still not been reunited with their parents.
SUMMERS: Right. And Trump was elected on a platform that promised these mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Homan would oversee that. Do we have any sense of how that might happen or what he might do there?
GARSD: It's not clear yet what mass deportations would look like. What Homan has said is that he would target criminals and national security threats first and then seek to deport noncriminals. Here's Homan at this year's Republican National Convention.
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TOM HOMAN: To the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden released in our country in violation of federal law, you better start packing now.
GARSD: So Homan has said that he will revive large-scale immigration arrests at workplaces, which is something that the Biden administration discontinued. And that - those arrests are not just about coming down on folks undercutting U.S. workers. It's also about helping solve human trafficking cases. Now, Homan has been asked if he would do family separation again. And he said he would deport families together in a humane way. But this would present really serious issues considering that 10.6 million American citizens live in a mixed immigration status family.
SUMMERS: Right. Jasmine, I want to turn quickly, if we can, to another position, and that's deputy chief of staff. Tell us how Stephen Miller could affect immigration policy.
GARSD: So Miller was the senior adviser to Trump during his first administration, and immigration has been his main policy focus. Again, no concrete plans have been revealed, but Miller has advocated for what he and Trump allies are saying will be the largest deportation in U.S. history. Here he is at this year's Conservative Political Action Committee Conference.
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STEPHEN MILLER: You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement. And then you also deploy the military to the Southern border not just with a mission to observe but with an impedance and denial mission.
GARSD: So, as with many Trump proposals, it's unclear how much of this they could legally do. But what is clear is that immigration, mass deportations will be front and center next year.
SUMMERS: NPR's Jasmine Garsd. Thank you.
GARSD: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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