Washington DC - President-elect Donald Trump said late Sunday he was bringing back hardline immigration official Tom Homan to oversee US borders in the incoming administration.

The 78-year-old Republican has pledged to launch the largest deportation operation of undocumented immigrants in US history.

"I am pleased to announce that the Former ICE Director, and stalwart on Border Control, Tom Homan, will be joining the Trump Administration, in charge of our Nation's Borders ('The Border Czar')," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

"I've known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders."

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Trump said Homan will be in charge of "all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin".

Homan, who led immigration enforcement during part of Trump's first administration and pushed for the infamous family separation policies, appeared at the Republican National Convention in July, telling supporters: "I got a message to the millions of illegal immigrants that Joe Biden's released in our country: you better start packing now."

Trump sealed a remarkable comeback to the presidency in the November 5 vote, cementing what is set to be more than a decade of US politics dominated by his hardline right-wing stance.

He will not be inaugurated until January, and so far has only made one cabinet appointment, naming his campaign manager Susie Wiles – whom he calls "ice baby" due to her supposedly unflappable temperament – as his White House chief of staff.

Trump also told the New York Post he has offered Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik the job of US ambassador to the United Nations. The New York representative, in her fifth term in office, told the newspaper she had accepted the role and was "truly honored".

While the US government has struggled for years to manage its southern border with Mexico, Trump has super-charged concerns by claiming an "invasion" is underway by migrants, whom he regularly demonizes with fascistic accusations of "poisoning the blood" of the US.

In rally speeches, he wildly exaggerated local tensions and misled his audiences about immigration statistics and policy.

Violent crime, which spiked under Trump, has fallen in every year of President Joe Biden's administration, and migrants commit fewer crimes proportionately than the native population.

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The number of US border patrol encounters with migrants crossing over from Mexico illegally is now about the same as in 2020, the last year of Trump's presidency, after peaking at a record 250,000 for the month of December 2023.

Trump vowed to target people using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – which allows the federal government to round up and deport foreigners belonging to enemy countries – as part of a mass deportation drive he christened "Operation Aurora."

Aurora was the scene of a viral video showing armed men rampaging through an apartment block that spurred sweeping, false narratives about the town being terrorized by Latin American migrants.

Trump and his vice president-elect, JD Vance, have similarly promoted the racist lie that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating residents' pets.