Trump picks Elise Stefanik, leading voice against campus antisemitism, as UN envoy
NY Republican made headlines with questioning of university presidents; US president-elect brings back hardline immigration official Tom Homan to oversee borders
US president-elect Donald Trump said Sunday he had offered New York Rep. Elise Stefanik the position of US ambassador to the United Nations in his new administration.
Stefanik, a high-ranking Republican in Congress, has been a leading pro-Israel lawmaker and led efforts to counter antisemitism on US campuses.
“I am honored to nominate Chairwoman Elise Stefanik to serve in my Cabinet as US Ambassador to the United Nations. Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump, 78, said in a statement to The New York Post.
Confirming her acceptance of the role, Stefanik told the newspaper she was “truly honored” to be nominated, and cited rising antisemitism as an issue that needs to be tackled.
“The work ahead is immense as we see antisemitism skyrocketing coupled with four years of catastrophically weak US leadership that significantly weakened our national security and diminished our standing in the eyes of both allies and adversaries,” Stefanik told the Post. Trump’s previous administration had a fractious relationship with the international body.
Stefanik’s tough questioning last year was part of a series of events that led to the eventual departure of presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, who equivocated when she asked them if they would condemn calls for genocide against Jews.
During a meeting of the Knesset Caucus for Jewish and Pro-Israel Students on Campuses Around the World earlier this year, she slammed US President Joe Biden’s decision to pause a shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel, warning that unless Israel is supplied with the weapons necessary to “achieve total victory,” America could face its own October 7.
However, the upstate New York Republican has also drawn condemnation for comments echoing the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” which in its original form claims that Jews are orchestrating the mass immigration of people of color into Western nations in order to replace their white populations. In 2021, Stefanik’s campaign posted on social media that Democrats plan to “overthrow our current electorate” by allowing undocumented immigrants to enter the country.
And leading Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin said last year that Stefanik enabled antisemitism within her party when she “didn’t utter a peep of protest” after Trump dined with Kanye West, the rapper who embraced antisemitism, and Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier.
Trump said Saturday that he “will not be inviting” back Nikki Haley, who served as UN ambassador under his first administration and later ran against him for the Republican nomination. He also said his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo will not be part of his next administration.
Border czar
On Sunday, Trump also said he was bringing back hardline immigration official Tom Homan to oversee the country’s borders in the incoming administration.
Trump has pledged to launch — on day one of his presidency — 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 social network Truth Social.
“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders.”
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, 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 — who never conceded his 2020 loss — 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.
Super-charged tensions
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 he says will rape and murder Americans.
During his campaign, he repeatedly railed against undocumented immigrants, employing violent rhetoric about those who “poison the blood” of the United States.
In rally speeches, he exaggerated local tensions and made misleading claims on immigration statistics and policy.
Migrants commit fewer crimes proportionately than the native population, though foreign suspects have been named in a few high-profile cases of violent attacks on women and children, infuriating Republicans.
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 tackle migrant gangs 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 Latinos rampaging through an apartment block that spurred sweeping, false narratives about the town being terrorized by Latin American migrants.
Trump has similarly promoted the fictitious story that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating residents’ pets.
