President Donald Trump is reportedly unhappy with the pace of deportations at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is changing out the department’s leadership.
A statement from ICE Thursday appeared to confirm the report and announced several changes, including the retirement of Acting Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Ken Genalo.
‘There are men and women out there enforcing the law and making this country safe again. And we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.’
Trump had promised mass deportation of illegal aliens in order to combat the crime crisis that resulted from lax border enforcement policies from previous administrations. Once in office for the second term, the administration was stymied by legal challenges that accused officials of violating due process rights of migrants.
The department said Thursday that a leadership “realignment” would improve the “increasing operational tempo” of deportations.
“Organizational realignments will help ICE achieve President Trump and the American people’s mandate of arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens and making American communities safe,” the department added.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said that their goal was to reach at least 3,000 deportations per day.
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Photo by Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images
The statement indicated that Homeland Security Investigations Acting Executive Associate Director Robert Hammer would also be reassigned to another critical leadership position after two decades at HSI.
Other changes were made to numerous offices at ICE, including the Non-Detained Management Division, ERO Field Operations, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, and the Management and Administration Directorate.
In April, border czar Tom Homan defended the pace of deportations in a statement during a media briefing.
“[ICE agents] are removing public safety threat and national security threats every day,” said Homan. “While you are sleeping at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, there are men and women out there enforcing the law and making this country safe again. And we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”
At the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security said that over 158,000 illegal aliens had been arrested and about 65,600 had been already deported.
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