Right from the outset of Donald Trump’s second term, there seemed to be some friction among the key players in bringing his immigration agenda to fruition.
On one hand, we had Tom Homan saying that agents would be targeting criminal illegals before worrying about everyone else. On the other hand, there were also officials, including Trump, who stated that this was going to be a numbers game, deporting every illegal that could be found.
On Monday evening, reports broke of a massive shakeup within ICE, and we are now apparently seeing the removal of people who are not on board with the Trump plan.
Homan has always walked the line on Trump’s immigration plans, as he seemingly wanted to focus on the nefarious element who had entered this country illegally while still putting all illegals on notice.
Within days of Trump taking office, he was interviewed by ABC News and stated, "There's consequences [for] entering the country illegally.” He continued, "If we don't show there's consequences, you're never going to fix the border problem.”
Homan was already hitting sanctuary cities for locking ICE out of their prisons, refusing to turn over for deportation illegals who had committed crimes.
He also noted that when they went after these criminal elements, it was unavoidable that other illegals who had not broken other laws would be scooped up, stating, "When we find him, he's going to be with others [and] if they're in the country illegally, they're coming too.”
After being confirmed as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem took a much more aggressive approach, putting all illegals on notice of a possible deportation.
She even took out an ad telling illegals that they could self-deport rather than risk arrest and deportation, which would make their next entry a felony if they were caught again.
The ad ran on all outlets and in other countries, stating, “Thank you, President Donald J. Trump, for securing our border and putting America first. President Trump has a clear message: if you are here illegally, we will find you and deport you. You will never return. But if you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American Dream.”
The ad continued, “If you are a criminal alien considering entering America illegally: Don’t even think about it. If you come here and break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome in the United States.”
We have already seen reports that morale within the immigration enforcement ranks was hurting, as there are apparently officers who think this effort has now become nothing more than a numbers game, and they did not like the speed with which ICE was moving to get people out of the country.
Then, on Monday night, a report surfaced that eight cities were replacing ICE’s current senior officials with Border Patrol officials, showing a huge shift in power within the administration on the immigration front. This, to me, was a clear slap in the face to ICE Director Todd Lyons and Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar.
To my earlier point, one DHS official commented, "ICE started off with the worst of the worst, knowing every target they are hitting, but since Border Patrol came to LA in June, we’ve lost our focus, going too hard, too fast, with limited prioritization. It’s getting numbers, but at what cost?"
The Trump administration would not comment on the reported changes, with DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stating, "While we have no personnel changes to announce at this time, the Trump administration remains laser focused on delivering results and removing violent criminal illegal aliens from this country."
I respect the fact that the administration is trying to keep this quiet because feeding these reports will only fuel the Democrat attacks against the administration on this front. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do when a disgruntled worker runs to the media, as I would suspect is the case here. This is definitely something we need to watch heading forward, however.
