NBC NEWS, WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to replace some regional leaders at Immigration and Customs Enforcement with Border Patrol officials in an attempt to intensify its mass deportations effort amid growing frustration with the pace of daily arrests, according to two Homeland Security Department officials, one former DHS official and one federal law enforcement official.
President Donald Trump’s top aides have welcomed Border Patrol’s more aggressive tactics to secure arrests, such as repelling into apartment buildings from Black Hawk helicopters and jumping out of rental trucks in Home Depot parking lots, as they’ve become disappointed with ICE, the officials said.
The White House has signed off on a list of at least a dozen directors of ICE field officers who are set to be reassigned in coming days, the two DHS officials, the former DHS official and the federal law enforcement official said.
The list was compiled by Corey Lewandowski, a special government employee at DHS who advises Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol sector chief overseeing the agency’s operations in Chicago and previously in Los Angeles, the law enforcement official said.
The New York Times was first to report that the Trump administration was planning a shake-up of ICE leadership amid frustration over arrest numbers, citing three people familiar with the plans.
As of late September, the latest period for which data is available due to the government shutdown, ICE was arresting 1,178 on average per day — well short of the 3,000 per day that the chief architect of Trump’s deportation policy, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, has demanded.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
