Tom Homan, former Acting Director of ICE under the first Trump administration, is a man who speaks about immigration enforcement with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer smashing a butterfly. He's a figure who has become notorious for his hardline rhetoric on immigration issues, often drawing ire from those who accuse him of harboring racist and xenophobic views. This isn't because he favors secure borders or efficient immigration enforcement – sensible enforcement is not necessarily anti-migrant – but rather because of the tone and tenor of his message and the implications of his policies.

Hunter S. Thompson once described "the right-wing swine who run the American government" as characters who seem to "hate life" and all who live it. Thompson's words resonate with those who view Homan's statements on migrants as callous, often openly disdainful, and at times, shockingly dehumanizing. For instance, Homan's relentless push to expedite deportations, his infamous defense of family separation policies, and his repeated language about migrants "not deserving" to be in the United States speak not to policy alone but to a broader mindset.

Rhetoric like Homan's sounds like the growling of a bureaucratic pit bull turned loose on vulnerable populations. The brutal approach under the guise of "law and order" becomes more about punishment than protection, more about division than security. When he passionately defended some of ICE's most controversial measures, he blurred the line between enforcing the law and an apparent eagerness to inflict harm on those he sees as unworthy.

To some, Homan's approach embodies an attitude that sees migrants not as individuals but as problems to be contained, as though they are threats rather than people. And in the end, that is perhaps the most damning aspect of Homan's legacy: the sheer impersonal harshness of his rhetoric, which feels more in line with disdain than duty. We think we're getting a sense of what the Nazi concentration guards must've been like.