Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says his department arrested more than 1,900 illegal immigrants in a single day this week, and that the public barely heard about it. That, he told Newsmax on Tuesday, is exactly the point.
Mullin and border czar Tom Homan are now openly describing a deliberate shift in how the Trump administration enforces immigration law: fewer made-for-television confrontations, more steady, grinding removals. The strategy amounts to a bet that results matter more than spectacle, and that keeping DHS out of hostile media coverage lets agents do their work faster.
The numbers Mullin cited on Newsmax tell the story in raw terms. More than 60,000 people are currently detained and moving through the deportation pipeline. Over 2,700 were deported last week alone. And analyst Austin Kocher pegs the current pace at roughly 1,200 removals per day, about 440,000 per year, as Breitbart News reported.
Mullin was blunt about his reasoning. He told Newsmax:
"I wanted to get DHS [Department of Homeland Security] out of the headlines so our ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, our CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] agents, and all the other law enforcement agencies we have underneath DHS could go do their job without being harassed by the media."
That candor is notable. The early months of the Trump deportation campaign drew round-the-clock cable coverage, protests, and legal challenges, much of it generated by high-profile operations designed to send a message. The new approach trades the message for throughput.
Mullin made clear the lower profile does not mean lower intensity:
"That doesn't mean we're slowing down even even a little bit. In fact, just yesterday, we arrested over 1,900 individuals. We have over 60,000 individuals that are currently being detained, going through the process of being deported. Last week, we deported over 2,700."
The AP reported that the administration has moved away from high-profile raids toward a quieter enforcement model built on expanded detention capacity, legal-status rollbacks, and broader cooperation with local law enforcement. DHS has purchased 11 warehouses to expand detention space. And the number of 287(g) agreements, which let local police assist in immigration enforcement, has grown from 135 in 20 states to more than 1,400 in 41 states and territories.
Mullin told CNBC in an April 16 interview, as the AP noted: "We're still enforcing immigration laws. We're still deporting illegals that shouldn't be here. We're still going after the worst of the worst, but we're doing it in a more quiet way."
Tom Homan has been less diplomatic. Speaking at an event for police professionals in Phoenix, Arizona, the border czar offered a preview that left little room for ambiguity.
"This year will be a good year, mass deportations are coming."
Homan also told CBS that the shift in tactics should not be mistaken for a retreat. "It's not lesser enforcement, it's smarter enforcement," he said. And when CBS reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez pressed him on whether the administration would forswear deporting non-violent illegal immigrants, Homan refused.
"I don't care how long you've been here, if you're here illegally, entered this country illegally, you cheated. You cheated the system."
That position, enforcement against all illegal immigrants, not just convicted criminals, marks a line the administration has held consistently. It also sets up a direct clash with the 20 House Republicans who back Rep. Maria Salazar's bill, which would chart a different course. The political stakes sharpen as the 2026 midterm elections approach.
Homan has repeatedly pushed back against media framing that tries to cast enforcement slowdowns as Republican failures rather than Democratic obstruction.
For all the bold promises, the administration's enforcement machine still faces real constraints. Just The News reported that ICE logged about 20,000 arrests in Trump's first month back in office, a pace that would total just under one million over four years, roughly 4.8 percent of the 21 million illegal immigrants the administration says are in the country.
The main bottleneck, that outlet noted, is resources. ICE is still operating under Biden-era funding levels. Detention expansion has hit setbacks. Military deportation flights were reportedly halted over cost concerns.
Homan acknowledged the prioritization in a Fox News appearance: "We are prioritizing public safety threats, child predators, rapists, murderers. These are the worst of the worst walking around your communities." An ICE spokesperson added that since January 20, the agency "has significantly increased its immigration enforcement activities with additional support from other federal law enforcement and DOD partners."
Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies offered a measured assessment of the tactical shift. "Clearly they've stepped back from the, for want of a better word, the Bovinoist tactics of before," he told the AP.
The leadership changes inside ICE have added another layer of transition. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons recently stepped down after overseeing the early surge in deportation numbers, raising questions about continuity at the operational level.
The administration's urgency makes more sense against the backdrop of what the Biden years left behind. Breitbart reported that President Joe Biden's policies allowed the entry of nearly 10 million inadmissible illegal migrants, pushing the resident illegal population to near 20 million. That inflow averaged roughly 6,200 illegal migrants per day, almost one new arrival for every American birth during Biden's tenure.
Those numbers dwarf what any single fiscal year of deportations can reverse. Even at the current pace of 440,000 removals a year, the math is sobering. It would take decades to clear a backlog that large, assuming no new illegal entries, an assumption no serious person makes.
That is the context in which Rosemary Jenks, a founder of the Mass Deportation Campaign, told Breitbart News in early April that it was time to shift gears. She praised the administration's initial focus on criminal aliens but argued the scope needed to widen.
"I absolutely applaud the Trump administration for everything that they have done in Phase One [of the deportation campaign]. But Phase One was focused on criminal aliens, the 'Worst of the Worst,' and it's time now to move to Phase Two."
Jenks said her group had drafted a playbook to help Trump's deputies accelerate. "We don't take away anything that the Trump administration has done. They have done yeoman's work on this issue, we absolutely applaud them for that. We're trying to give them ideas for how to ramp it up."
The administration has also pursued unconventional removal strategies, including third-country deportation agreements that send illegal immigrants to nations other than their home countries.
The core question hanging over the strategy shift is whether "smarter enforcement" is genuinely more effective or simply less visible. Critics from the right worry that quieter operations produce quieter results. ICE budget documents still project one million removals this fiscal year and next, but the current daily pace falls well short of that target.
The administration says it has taken "many steps" in recent months to clear logistical and legal obstacles, though specifics remain thin. What is clear is that detention capacity has expanded, local law enforcement partnerships have multiplied tenfold, and the political will at the top has not wavered.
Democrats, meanwhile, have fought DHS at every turn, from funding battles to courtroom challenges to city-level sanctuary policies that shield illegal immigrants from federal agents. Every dollar withheld and every injunction filed slows the machine the administration is trying to build.
Mullin was asked directly whether the shift meant a slowdown. His answer was flat: "No, absolutely positively, we're not slowing down one bit."
The voters who sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 did not ask for press conferences. They asked for deportations. If Mullin and Homan deliver the numbers without the drama, most of those voters will not miss the cameras one bit.
