At the end of the first month of Donald Trump's presidency, the Border Czar, Tom Homan, acknowledged being unsatisfied with the pace of arrests and deportations and announced the reallocation of human resources and the restructuring of operations within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.
"I am not happy with the numbers because we have many criminals to find. We are now talking about increasing the number of teams, increasing the focus, the division of ICE that creates the target list," he declared in an interview with CNN. "We are increasing prioritization and increasing teams in the field," he specified.
The Trump administration has claimed that the number of migrant arrests has been higher than during the Biden era, as immigration authorities have detained about 12,000 people between January 20 and February 8, compared to less than 5,000 in the same period of the previous administration.
But the reality is that ICE detentions have decreased this month, according to data provided to The Washington Post by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), dropping from an average of 800 migrants per day at the end of January to fewer than 600 migrants during the first 13 days of February, a figure below the quotas Homan demanded from ICE agents, of around 1,200 to 1,500 migrants detained per day.
"The number is much higher than that of the Biden administration, but we have to do more, and I've been very clear about that. And instead of arresting a bad guy in Rikers Island (a New York prison), we have to go to the neighborhood and find them… We have to send an entire team into the field to find someone who does not want to be found, and that's why it's hard work, but we will not give up," Homan asserted.
During his first term, despite launching a similar crusade against illegal immigration, Trump was only able to deport 1.5 million people, as he faced operational problems and lawsuits in the courts. In comparison, Barack Obama deported 5 million migrants in the 8 years of his two terms, earning him the nickname "deporter in chief."
The Achilles' heel of Trump's second term is the lack of budget to hire more ICE and Border Patrol agents. "That's where we are making the operational changes that I have requested," Homan said.
The two main immigration enforcement officials in ICE were already dismissed from their positions this week and reassigned due to what Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem called a lack of "results," according to the Post.
She blamed part of the problem on so-called "sanctuary cities," such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, which are prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration authorities to identify and arrest migrants for deportation. "Sanctuary cities are causing us a lot of work. Although it has majorities in Congress, an extraordinary immigration budget request requires the support of Democrats, who oppose its immigration policy.
