The chief architect of Trump’s mass deportation policy faces internal pushback as the effects of increased ICE raids become clear.
In a meeting last month, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller tore into senior leaders at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, demanding a massive surge in arrests of undocumented immigrants. As ICE tried to comply with Miller’s orders, immigration activists and other concerned Americans launched a series of protests in defiance of the mass deportation agenda. But it was a different set of protests that got the attention of Miller’s boss, President Donald Trump.
Last Thursday, the administration abruptly paused raids and arrests at hotels, farms and restaurants, a stunning shift in priorities that was clearly contrary to Miller’s orders. But the change was short-lived. The Department of Homeland Security reversed that guidance Monday, according to The Washington Post, allowing the immigration raids on those industries to resume and letting Miller retake control of the policy that has been the focus of his years in both Trump administrations.
Since Inauguration Day, Miller has had carte blanche on immigration policy in his dual role as deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser. His insistence that ICE make 3,000 arrests per day kick-started a scramble from field offices to meet his demand. But as Vox’s Eric Levitz recently noted, Miller’s own strategy of deterrence at the border has led to a decline in the kind of encounters that would make it easy for ICE agents to rack up those numbers:
Over the past two months, America witnessed the largest decline in its foreign-born workforce since the pandemic in 2020. This contraction was driven partly by a collapse in unauthorized border crossings. Between January 2022 and June 2024, US Customs and Border Protection encountered an average of 200,000 people per month at America’s Southwest border. According to an analysis of government data from Deutsche Bank, that figure has fallen to just 12,000 people per month since Trump’s inauguration.
That has meant ICE has had to expand its list of targets to meet its quotas, including rounding up day laborers in Home Depot parking lots and field workers toiling on farms. The resulting climate of fear has scared more than just undocumented immigrants in these workforces. A Texas farmer recently told NBC affiliate KVEO of Brownsville, Texas, that within the last three weeks, there have been “zero people wanting to come out and be exposed to be able to be picked up whether they are legal or illegal.”
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/stephen-miller-ice-deportation-rcna213491