New DHS Chief’s Call for Quieter Immigration Enforcement Alarms MAGA Base

A month into his tenure, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is facing mounting pressure from conservative groups that fear the Trump administration is going soft on its mass deportation agenda amid a public backlash over aggressive enforcement tactics.

Mullin has vowed to restore confidence in the Department of Homeland Security after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. In a recent cable news appearance, he expressed a desire to conduct enforcement in a “more quiet way.”

Organizations such as the Mass Deportation Coalition, formed in March and led by the Heritage Foundation, interpret that approach as a potential betrayal of one of the president’s core campaign promises. The coalition recently published a lengthy report concluding that the administration had deported 350,000 immigrants in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, far fewer than the 650,000 deportations that Trump officials have cited.

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DHS remains mired in a partial shutdown, and Trump is facing the lowest approval ratings of his second term, with the public souring on his handling of immigration, the economy and the war in Iran. Mullin has consistently struck a moderate message, saying his goal is to keep DHS from being the lead story on the news each night. That rhetoric reflects guidance given to Mullin by the White House, according to one federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

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Trump has tried to improve the public’s views of ICE, which he praised for helping the Transportation Security Administration manage lengthy lines at U.S. airports last month caused by the DHS shutdown. On Sunday, the president endorsed a conservative influencer’s suggestion of changing ICE’s name to National Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or NICE.

DHS is rapidly expanding federal detention centers and hiring new immigration officers after congressional Republicans approved $170 billion in new funding for enforcement last year. But federal data suggests the administration has begun to shift its approach, relying less heavily on the type of large-scale enforcement operations in Minneapolis and other big cities that led to a surge in “at-large” arrests of migrants in community sweeps, according to an analysis from the American Immigration Council.

The number of such arrests fell from a peak of more than 800 per day in December to fewer than 500 per day in March, the analysis found. In early April, ICE was holding 60,311 immigrants in detention, the lowest number since September and down from a peak of 70,766 in January, according to an analysis from TRAC Immigration.

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The official said 3 million undocumented immigrants have left the country since Trump took office last year — a number that appears to combine deportations and voluntary departures. {snip}

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