President Trump announced today that former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Thomas Homan will return to his administration as “border czar,” a new post he described during an interview with “Fox & Friends.”

The news comes immediately after we’ve learned even more shocking revelations about the treatment of migrant families and children in U.S. custody, including along the border. But Homan’s appointment will likely intensify the cruelty of the administration’s border policies.

Homan was one of three administration officials, including current Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan, who signed a memo to now-former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen which paved the way for the family separation policy. The memo stated that DHS could “permissibly direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in immigration detention so that the parent or legal guardian can be prosecuted.”  It also recommended that the department “pursue prosecution of all amenable adults who cross our border illegally, including those presenting with a family unit, between ports of entry.”  Thousands of parents and children continue to suffer the consequences of this viciously cruel decree.

While Homan was the one who recommended the policy of family separation, he tried to blame everybody but himself. He claimed that “you’d have to put the blame on the parents” for family separation and echoed Trump’s false talking point that Democrats in Congress were the ones responsible for the policy. In reality, it was a decision made and put into practice by none other than the Trump administration itself.

Under Homan’s leadership, ICE ramped up its arrests; targeted so-called sanctuary communities; pushed for extending detentions of pregnant women and presided over two dozen deaths in custody; retaliated against immigrant rights activists; arrested unsuspecting people who showed up to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices for routine interviews; and apprehended people going to court hearings, including survivors of domestic violence.

ICE also showed a pattern of dishonesty under his leadership, systematically ignoring clear violations of basic detention standards at their brutal detention facilities and even going so far as to mislead a judge in one case in order to accelerate efforts to detain and deport Iraqi-Americans.

Homan defended ICE’s growing number of arrests of people without criminal records by insisting that all immigrants without immigration status ”[s]hould be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder and you need to be worried,” he said. Public officials who adopt so-called sanctuary policies to advance their communities’ public safety, Homan said, should be arrested.

Since leaving ICE, Homan joined the Fox News Channel as a contributor, where he has continued to push anti-immigrant messages to a broader public and the network’s number one fan in the White House. On Fox, Homan doubled down on his rhetoric, boasting that “there should be fear in the immigrant community,” and urging the president to close the U.S.-Mexican border.

While it is still unclear what Homan’s new position entails, his record should disqualify him from any position in the federal government—and particularly one that will once again put him in a position to subject children and families to unconscionable treatment.  Congress must continue to use its oversight power to hold Homan accountable for anti-immigrant abuse.

Brian Tashman, Political Researcher and Strategist, ACLU

Since taking office, the Trump administration has launched a systematic attack on laws that exist to protect all of us from discrimination when we seek basic health care.  Today, we’re taking them back to court over it.

Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) resurrected a policy that allows health care providers — including hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices — to use their religious beliefs to withhold critical information and obstruct patient’s access to health care. In 2009, the ACLU challenged the original version of the rule. Ten years later, we filed a lawsuit to, once again, preserve access to evidence-based, nonjudgmental health care and ensure that medical standards — not religious belief — guide health care.

There is no better example of “a solution in search of a problem” than this policy. In finalizing this rule, the government highlighted a number of cases the ACLU brought to protect patients from discrimination. The rule cites three of our clients: Tamesha Means, who was turned away three times by a religiously affiliated hospital in the midst of a miscarriage of a non-viable fetus, without being provided even the basic counseling that her own life could be in jeopardy if she did not access an emergency abortion; Rebecca Chamorro, who was denied a standard postpartum tubal ligation at the religiously affiliated hospital where she was scheduled to give birth — although her doctor was ready and willing to perform it; and Evan Minton, whose hysterectomy was cancelled by a religiously affiliated hospital the day before it was scheduled to take place when the hospital learned he is transgender.  

According to the Trump administration, the problem is not that Tamesha Means developed a life-threatening infection, that Rebecca Chamorro had to undergo an unnecessary surgical procedure, or that Evan Minton was denied essential gender-affirming care. The problem is that they all stood up and challenged the institutions that put religious directives before their health and wellbeing.

This rule would do nothing to prevent the harm these patients suffered as a result of being denied care. Indeed, by transforming the hospitals’ unlawful act of turning patients away into a protected exercise of religious liberty, this rule would only cause more patients to be discriminated against and deprived of the care they need. That’s not just a bug in the system — it’s the whole point.

We raised exactly these problems when HHS first proposed this rule in 2018. But HHS moved forward with it anyway, resulting in an even more extreme final rule. HHS has even declined to clarify whether the rule applies in emergency situations, potentially leading to refusals of care with dire consequences.

The administration claims this rule is needed to protect religious liberty, but religious liberty does not include a license to discriminate, to deny essential care, or to cause harm to others. There are already safeguards in place to protect employees’ religious beliefs. All this rule does is encourage discrimination against patients, sending a clear message about what discrimination is tolerable and who is worthy of protection.

Like so many of this administration’s policies, the refusal of care rule would have its most profound impact on access to reproductive health care, particularly for the millions of patients — who are disproportionately Black and Latinx — seeking options counseling and a referral for abortion in the Title X program.  Under the rule, if a pregnant patient requests counseling, a nurse could refuse to provide information about abortion, leaving that patient without a complete picture of the available options.  The clinic where the nurse works may not know that the patient did not receive complete counseling because, under this policy, the clinic is only permitted to ask staff members about their objections to doing their jobs once a year. 

And even if the clinic learns that the nurse is refusing to provide complete options counseling to patients, the rule is so absolute that the clinic could have no option but to hire additional staff to provide the services or risk losing all its federal funding if it violates the rule. Because that is unrealistic for most clinics operating under extremely tight budgets, practically this means the clinic would likely have to cut services, diminish the quality of those services, or discontinue them altogether.

The refusal of care rule’s failure to account for patients’ wellbeing not only flies in the face of everything the Title X program stands for, it also undermines basic principles of medical ethics and informed consent. 

The ACLU and NYCLU brought this challenge with two organizations who have been leaders in this fight: the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), the lead national advocacy organization for the Title X family planning program representing hundreds of health care providers across the country; and Public Health Solutions, Inc. (PHS), the largest public health nonprofit serving NYC, including tens of thousands of uninsured and underinsured New Yorkers each year. We refuse to stand by as access to health care is pushed further out of reach for this country’s most vulnerable populations.  

The refusal of care rule violates the Constitution and numerous federal legal protections for patients and so the rule should be prevented from going into effect.  Contrary to what this government would have you believe, the “problem” is not that people are seeking basic health care; the problem is that the Trump administration is doing everything it can to undermine access to that care as well as to embolden discrimination in the process.

Lindsey Kaley, Staff Attorney, ACLU

This feature is part of the ACLU of Florida's "LGBTQ+ Youth Activist Project" commemorating Pride Month during the month of June.

"My name is Elijah Manley. I'm 20 years old. I'm from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I study political science at Broward College."

Q: How does your work make our community a more inclusive and open place for everyone, regardless of where they come from, how they identify, or who they love?

A: "A lot of people don't know this about me, but I actually ran for office in 2018. I was one of the youngest people in the country to run for office. I ran for Broward County School Board. I have attended the United Nations twice in one year, with hundreds of other young people from across the planet. We talked about sustainable development goals and issues important to our generation, such as climate change.

"I think I'm a classic example of someone fighting for an inclusive community. All for all of us. I'm African-American. I'm also a gay male and I'm young. In politics, you don't see that combination a lot.

"So, I hope to inspire other young people, regardless of where they come from, to do what is necessary to move this country forward."

Q: What do you see as the most pressing issue currently affecting LGBTQ youth?

A: "There's a lot of violence in this country toward people in many communities, including African-American community right now, with the rise of white nationalism and racism. And the violence against the LGBTQ community, specifically transgender individuals.

"We are definitely facing some very dangerous political times and it's important that we all use our voice and leverage our voice and our resources to help those who may not be the most fortunate."

Q: What message of encouragement would you like to send to LGBTQ youth who could be lacking the support to thrive in today's society?

A: "For Pride Month, I encourage other young people just like myself to go out there and to keep going, to keep fighting, and to know that there is always a way. Just remember there are millions of people just like you out there who are fighting to make the world a better place so that you can be yourself."

Elijah Manley, 20, is from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.