Thomas Homan has been acting head of ICE for over a year.

For reasons that are not particularly clear, his nomination has been on hold since November, has resigned as acting head of ICE:

Thomas Homan, the Trump administration’s top immigration enforcement official, announced Monday that he plans to step down from his job, less than six months after Trump nominated him to be director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Homan was named ICE’s acting director soon after Trump took office in 2017, and the tough-talking, barrel-chested former Border Patrol agent quickly became an unapologetic enthusiast for the administration’s more aggressive enforcement approach.

Under Homan, immigration arrests surged 40 percent after agents scrapped an Obama administration policy of targeting serious or violent criminal offenders in favor of casting a wider net. Homan said those living illegally in the United States “should be afraid” that his agents could be coming for them.

The article engages in some Kremlinology to try and explain this, suggesting that he had fallen out of Trump’s favor, but I think that it is more likely that there was something in his background that would have prevented his confirmation by the Senate:

Thomas Homan, President Trump’s pick to permanently lead the nation’s immigration enforcement agency, has been in limbo since his nomination last November — and Democratic senators want to know why.

In a letter released Friday, nearly 20 Senate Democrats said they want the Department of Homeland Security to hand over documents shedding more light on Homan and his formal nomination to become the next director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The nomination of Homan, who has been leading the immigration agency in an acting capacity since the beginning of Trump’s presidency, has stalled since it was officially submitted to the Senate on Nov. 14, 2017, with no confirmation hearing nor movement in the chamber.

………

Democratic senators said DHS needs to give more information to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee before the nomination can proceed, but the department has yet to do so. The fact that it took Trump nearly 10 months to officially nominate an ICE director was also “striking,” Democrats wrote, “given the priority this Administration claims to place on immigration enforcement.”

“We understand that the Trump Administration may be concerned about Mr. Homan answering questions under oath about his leadership of ICE, as well as the possibility that Mr. Homan’s nomination could be defeated in the Senate,” the Democrats wrote in the letter. “However, the Senate is an independent branch of government and has a responsibility under the Constitution to provide its advice and consent on this nomination.

The fact that DHS has been unwilling to provide full documentation, and that this is juxtaposed with the spectacular flame out of Doctor Feelgood Ronny Jackson is ……… Curious ……… to say the least.

I gotta figure that there is something truly embarrassing in Homan’s background, and that senior White House staff, along with senior Republicans in the Senate, know what it is.