SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — As president-elect Donald Trump lays the groundwork for his border policies, local immigrant rights groups are preparing.
Trump has vowed to begin a mass-deportation plan to expel all undocumented immigrants beginning on day one of taking office, and has now named Tom Homan to carry out his plan.
As acting director of ICE during Trump's first administration, Tom Homan was one of the creators of the "Zero Tolerance" policy, leading to the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents.
Immigrant rights advocates are concerned this scenario could play out, on perhaps an even larger scale, during the second Trump administration.
"We will begin the largest deportation operation in American history," Trump repeatedly said while on the campaign trail.
As part of his campaign promise to undertake mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, he has now named former ICE director Tom Homan as his "Border Czar."
Under the Obama administration, Homan carried out a record number of formal deportations.
Homan recently appeared on 60 minutes, during which correspondent Cecilia Vega asked, "Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?"
"Of course there is," Homan responded. "Families can be deported together."
"What we want people to do is to inform themselves about what their rights are," said human rights advocate Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego.
Rios said the way his and other immigrant-rights groups now move forward must be intensely focused "to ensure that as many people as possible are protected and don't fall victim o these terrible ideas of separating families."
He added that the incoming administration is already apparently ramping up its efforts to carry out mass-scale deportations, including for-profit detention facilities finding ways to expand their capacity.
"There are conversations about the incoming Trump administration declaring a 'national emergency' which would allow for the use of a greater amount of funding that's at this moment not designated for this purpose," Rios told CBS 8.
Exit polls indicate a growing number of Latino voters helped Trump secure his second presidential win, with a larger share of the Latino vote nationwide compared to 2020.
"It doesn't change how we do things," Rios said. "Irrespective of what the outcome has been in the elections and how people voted, people merit the protection of rights, and it's our job then, our purpose is to make sure those rights are respected."
Trump's appointment of Homan as his new 'border czar' does not require congressional approval.