WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security is expected to be under new management soon, as the political fight over President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda intensifies ahead of Senate confirmation hearings for his nominee to lead the agency.
The opportunity, depending on how Republicans approach the transition, could mean resetting the immigration agenda or doubling down on Trump’s signature promise of conducting what supporters describe as the largest deportation effort in American history.
The pressure comes after a political director recently encouraged Republican lawmakers during a retreat at the president’s golf club in Florida to focus on immigration enforcement against criminals. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the aggressive operations have created a “hiccup” for the party and that it is embarking on a “course correction.”
But indications presented in the reporting suggest the mass-deportation effort is not stalling. The administration is spending billions to hire Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, build warehouse detention sites, and pursue the goal of rounding up and removing some 1 million immigrants from the United States this year.
“We are at an interesting moment where it has been an inflection point — the public has finally seen what mass detention and mass deportation mean,” said Sarah Mehta, who tracks the issue at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is not an agency that’s slowing down,” she said. “They’re really going forward with some of the cruelest policies.”
On the other side of the debate, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the president’s policies have already sent immigrants out of the U.S., either through forced deportations or on their own, and that they have sealed up the U.S.-Mexico border. “Nobody is changing the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” she said.
The DHS leadership question is set to become central this week as Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma appears for Senate confirmation hearings. The reporting said Secretary Kristi Noem is on her way out, and Mullin is the nominee to replace her.
Democratic lawmakers are refusing to provide routine funding unless the department changes its policies after intense deportation sweeps in Minneapolis and other cities, and after the deaths of at least three U.S. citizens at the hands of officers, according to the report. At the same time, some Republicans who supported the campaign promises that brought Trump to the White House are pressing the administration to deliver higher removals.
Rosemary Jenks, co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, described the debate as a potential shift away from the mass-deportation promise. “There has been a lot of talk in Congress and now in the White House about kind of backing away from President Trump’s, candidate Trump’s, mass deportation promise,” she said. Jenks said, “We believe that now is an opportunity. We’ve got to get the deportation numbers up.”
The fight is unfolding as the United States marks its 250th year and confronts images of masked federal agents detaining people, while Republicans control Congress and, the report said, provided about $170 billion in last year’s tax cuts bill to fuel the effort, more than tripling the budget of ICE.
In a speech, GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri said, “This question about deporting illegal immigrants was on the ballot. President Trump was not bashful,” and, “And the American people supported the idea that we are going to deport people.”
However, the report also described cracks within the coalition supporting Trump’s agenda. Some Republicans favor what one described as a more humane approach and are sharing their views with Mullin, including Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who said in his state that it’s immigrants who milk most of the dairy cows and that he has heard from restaurant groups that rely on immigrants to fill jobs.
Johnson asked, “Can we just turn back the clock and have these all these people who came in here illegally, just be back home?” He said implementing such an approach is “a lot tougher,” and that “when you realize a lot of these people, most of them, came here to seek opportunity, wanting freedom,” adding, “They’re working, supporting their family, contributing to organizations and community.”
Meanwhile, deportation advocates formed a group aimed at keeping the administration on track. The Mass Deportation Coalition, a group of conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation and Erik Prince, founder of the security firm Blackwater, was formed recently, the report said. It called last year’s focus on removing violent criminal immigrants “phase one” and said “phase two” should focus this year on deporting immigrants beyond those with violent criminal histories.
Mark Morgan, part of the coalition and a former acting head of ICE and Customs and Border Protection during Trump’s first term, said the coalition’s approach does not mean “roving patrols through Home Depot parking lots.” Instead, he described it as strategic enforcement focused on immigrants at worksites, those who have overstayed visas, and people a judge has already ordered removed.
Morgan acknowledged opposition from within the Republican Party, saying those who want to narrow deportation mainly to criminals and business groups that want to ease up on worksite enforcement are pushing back. “The Republicans that are saying that their definition of targeted enforcement is only criminal, they’re wrong. They’re on the wrong side of this,” Morgan said, adding, “That’s why you see some of the base that’s really becoming apoplectic because they’re like, ‘Wait a minute. You’re talking about only removing criminals now?’ That’s not what you promised,’” according to the report.
The reporting also described what opponents and supporters see as the administration’s next best path to reach its deportation goals. The deportation advocates and those seeking to protect immigrants’ rights both, in the account, pointed to a strategy of making conditions so unwelcoming that immigrants leave on their own, sometimes called self-deportation.
Mehta said she expects the administration will step up efforts to end temporary permissions that allow immigrants to remain in the U.S., particularly refugees and asylum-seekers, while cases are making their way through the system. She called it “a deliberate attempt to make people undocumented — to take away lawful status — and then to be able to enforce against them.”
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said he fears more nonviolent immigrants will be rounded up to fill warehouses being equipped as the administration tries to reach its deportation goals. “That’s unacceptable,” he said, adding that among “the key questions that Senator Mullin will have to answer at his confirmation hearing.”