Daily Beast: Stephen Miller and ICE Barbie in Bitter West Wing Civil War Over Round-Ups

White House Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—dubbed “ICE Barbie” for her stylized anti-immigration photo ops—were enraged after learning that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins had called Trump and suggested that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents avoid deporting longtime workers in sectors heavily reliant on migrant labor, Axios reported.

Rollins’ intervention—which one insider described as “minimal”—appeared to sway the president. Last week, Trump floated the idea of carving out exemptions from his mass deportation plans specifically to avoid targeting non-criminal workers on farms and in hotels.

An official policy shift followed soon after. Senior ICE official Tatum King informed regional ICE offices Thursday that “investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meatpacking plants), restaurants, and operating hotels” would be paused.

By Monday, the Department of Homeland Security reversed course, notifying staff that the previous guidelines were scrapped and that ICE would resume raids on agricultural businesses, hotels, and restaurants, The Washington Post reported.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-miller-and-ice-barbie-kristi-noem-in-bitter-west-wing-civil-war-over-round-ups

Guardian: Trump orders Ice raids on farms and hotels after pausing them days earlier

Reversal comes days after president posted on Truth Social his ‘very aggressive’ raids were hurting farmers and hotels

Donald Trump has abandoned his brief immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) reprieve for farm and hotel workers, ordering the agency’s raids in those sectors to resume after hardliners crushed a pause that lasted just four days.

The whiplash reversal, first reported by the Washington Post, exposes the dysfunction gripping the president’s deportation agenda, where competing advisers battle over policy while Trump lurches between contradictory positions.

The flip-flop also follows Trump’s erratic pattern on major policies – from threatening then retreating on mass global tariffs to wavering on federal spending cuts – as different factions fight for his ear.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/17/ice-raids-farms-hotels-trump