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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in El Centro, California.
During an appearance on MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” NBC's Julia Ainsley reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is rife with “inner turmoil” as a key ally of Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller has been ousted, deportation numbers are down and expenses are exploding.
Speaking with the panel on MSNBC, Ainsley noted that ICE has been less than forthcoming on their efforts to round up undocumented immigrants and the numbers are down under Donald Trump compared to a the first month under President Joe Biden and that has the White House unhappy.
“You've been reporting on for the last two months of this administration, the concern and the frustration that they're not doing enough fast enough,” MSNBC host Ali Vitali asked her guest.
“You're right, Ali,” Ainsley replied. “I think we also have to remember that they've been looking at these numbers, even though we're just now getting them, I think this explains a lot of that inner turmoil where we saw the acting head of ICE get reassigned to another part of ICE; they replaced him very quickly, that's someone who had a relationship with Stephen Miller and was handpicked for that job, and now they're replacing him.
“We know that border czar Tom Homan is very frequently on calls with ICE, telling them they need to ramp up their deportation numbers, they try giving them quotas that they weren't able to meet,” she added. “Of course, they've assigned many people from DOJ components like the ATF and DEA to go out and help make these arrests and none of that has actually brought the deportation numbers as high as they want them to.”
She also noted that more money is needed from Congress but that is a way off and the experiment of flying detainees to Guantanamo is falling apart.
“They can increase detention space and then they could arrest and deport more people. Of course, they tried that in Guantanamo Bay and now, as we've reported here, of course, they're rethinking that policy, because that turned out to be so expensive and not logistically possible either,” she reported.
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“But this explains, I think, these deportation numbers explain why we've seen so much handwringing, the anger, the firings,” she added. “It's because of these number and that's one of the reasons why they haven't been as public with these as they have been with the arrest numbers, which are up over 100%.”
