Federal immigration officials have faced severe criticism from members of the Trump administration, displeased with the number of immigration arrests and deportations, according to the Washington Examiner.
Late last month, a heated discussion arose between White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and several senior officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Trust between the parties is in a downward spiral as top staffers believe the administration is closely watching them regarding how they’re conducting their detentions of unlawful immigrants. Three current and former immigration officials spoke to the Examiner.
“They’ve been threatened, told they’re watching their emails and texts and Signals,” one anonymous official said. “That’s what is horrible about things right now. It’s a fearful environment. Everybody in leadership is afraid. … There’s no morale. Everybody is demoralized.”
The top 50 officials at ICE were informed about an emergency meeting in the nation’s capital a week in advance. The agency confirmed to the Examiner that ICE’s 25 field office directors of Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) and the 25 special agents in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived in Washington for the meeting on Tuesday, May 20, when Miller scolded them.
“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,” an official who spoke to those in the room during the meeting told the Examiner.
“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” the official added, recounting what happened.
An ERO official said during the meeting that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House had argued publicly that they were going after criminal illegal immigrants and that ICE was targeting them, not illegal immigrants in general.
“Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re going after criminals?’ Miller got into a little bit of a pissing contest,” said the official.
“‘That’s what Tom Homan says every time he’s on TV: ‘We’re going after criminals,'” the ICE official told the deputy chief of staff, according to the account of the meeting.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem subsequently spoke to the assembled officials.
“‘You guys are doing an okay job, but you’re not doing enough. You need to do more,'” one official quoted her as saying, according to the Examiner.
A spokesperson for ICE told the outlet on Thursday that the descriptions regarding Miller were “inaccurate.” However, other outlets, such as Axios, also reported that the meeting was strained.
“Stephen Miller did not say many of the things you state,” ICE deputy assistant director of media affairs Laszlo Baksay told the Examiner, adding that ICE detained almost 1,600 illegal immigrants on Wednesday, May 28. It was one of the days with the most arrests since the beginning of Trump’s second term.
That’s still way below the daily goal for illegal immigrant arrests, according to Miller.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day, so we can get all of the Biden illegals that were flooded into our country for four years out of our country,” Miller said on Fox News last week.
The White House told the Examiner that “Keeping President Trump’s promise to deport illegal aliens is something the administration takes seriously.”
“We are committed to aggressively and efficiently removing illegal aliens from the United States, and ensuring our law enforcement officers have the resources necessary to do so. The safety of the American people depends upon it,” an administration spokesperson added.
