The State Department honored an immigration official with a Presidential Rank award, the government's highest award for civil servants, for deporting illegal immigrants with criminal background.
In 2015, Thomas Homan, executive associate director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, set records for expelling illegal immigrants who had criminal records from the U.S., according to Homan's superiors at the Department of Homeland Security.
Homan said, in a speech when he received the award, that he believes people do not understand his job.
"The first thing I do when I get into the office every day is I read the media stories about immigration," Homan said, according to a
Washington Post report. "People don't understand what we do or how we do it."
Homan said he does not automatically expel anyone who is in poor health. Anyone who is deported has already exhausted due process, he said in the interview.
"It's not my favorite part of the job," Homan said. "That final order of removal has to mean something."
Homan focused on criminals and foreigners who may pose security risks, according to a directive from the Obama administration. By using an improved fingerprinting system, Homan was able to deport a record number of illegal immigrants who had criminal records.
"We executed the mission perfectly," Homan said, and he tries to provide information to those who misunderstand the immigration system.
Human Rights First published a critique of the U.S. asylum and immigration court systems. It noted that 144,500 cases are backlogged at the Asylum Division, up from 32,560 in 2013.
Under Homan's direction, 59 percent of all aliens removed from the U.S. were convicted criminals, according to the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement website.
"I'm not ashamed of what I do," Homan said. "We don't do schoolhouse raids or neighborhood raids. We don't show up with bulletproof vests. We arrest a lot of bad guys. We prevent crime."
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