Trump plans to appoint Border Patrol agents to carry out more aggressive crackdown on migrants

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering replacing some regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaders with Border Patrol agents in an effort to step up its mass expulsion efforts amid growing frustration with the pace of daily apprehensions, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials, a former DHS official and a federal law enforcement official.

Top aides to President Donald Trump praised the Border Patrol’s more aggressive tactics to secure apprehensions, such as rappelling into apartment buildings from Black Hawk helicopters and jumping rental trucks in Home Depot parking lots, because they were disappointed with ICE, the officials said.

“The mentality is that CBP does what it is told, and the administration thinks ICE is not doing its job,” one of the DHS officials said. “So CBP will do it.”

The White House has signed off on a list of at least a dozen ICE field agent directors who are expected to be reassigned in the coming days, the two DHS officials, the former DHS official and the federal law enforcement official, said. They said at least half of them would be replaced by Border Patrol agents. ICE has 25 field offices across the country, meaning the move could replace nearly half of the agency’s leadership.

The list was compiled by Corey Lewandowski, a special DHS employee who advises Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol sector chief overseeing the agency’s operations in Chicago and previously Los Angeles, the law enforcement official said.

The administration’s decision to rely more on the Border Patrol marks a potential new phase in Trump’s deportation efforts. Although ICE has been criticized for its searches, the agency’s general approach has been to make targeted arrests of immigrants known to be in the country illegally. The Border Patrol’s approach to recent arrests in major U.S. cities has been more aggressive, carrying out extensive sweeps that have sparked some of the strongest reactions from protesters and resulted in lawsuits.

The New York Times was first to report that the Trump administration was planning a shakeup of ICE leadership amid frustration over the number of arrests, citing three people familiar with the plan.

At the end of September, the latest period for which data is available due to the government shutdown, ICE was arresting an average of 1,178 people per day — far below the 3,000 per day demanded by the chief architect of Trump’s deportation policy, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked about any plans to reassign ICE leadership, White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “The President’s entire team works closely to implement the President’s policy agenda, and the tremendous results from securing the border to deporting criminal illegal aliens speak for themselves.” »

The Border Patrol has deployed more than 1,500 agents to arrest immigrants in cities across the country to facilitate expulsions, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks told NBC News. For comparison, 8,500 agents work for ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations.

The Border Patrol is responsible for some of the most arresting images of immigrant arrests since Trump took office. Earlier this month in Chicago, Border Patrol agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter into an apartment building while families slept. Last week, videos emerged in Chicago of Bovino throwing a gas canister at the crowd.

The incident is now part of a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of using overly aggressive tactics.

Bovino was ordered Tuesday before a federal judge in Illinois to answer questions about whether recent arrest tactics in the Chicago area, including the use of tear gas, violated a temporary restraining order against excessive use of force by CBP. Plaintiffs’ attorneys pointed to Bovino’s personal use of tear gas as a potential violation of the judge’s order.

DHS Deputy Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to NBC News on Monday that Bovino was struck in the head by a rock. “We look forward to Americans viewing the footage,” she said.

Some ICE leaders have quietly expressed dismay at the Border Patrol’s tactics in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, the law enforcement official and two DHS officials said.

Two former ICE officials said ICE does not have some of the resources that the Border Patrol has, such as the Black Hawks.

The White House’s frustration with ICE has been building for months.

In mid-May, Miller told ICE leaders that if they didn’t start arresting 3,000 immigrants a day, he would see leaders in the worst-performing regions removed from office, according to two people who spoke to meeting attendees.

At the time, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons resisted the idea of ​​firing ICE field office directors, the two people who had spoken to meeting attendees.

The Trump administration has increasingly turned to Bovino to oversee border patrol operations targeting immigrants in major U.S. cities, most recently in Chicago, where Bovino arrived in mid-October and became the public face of the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts there.

DHS officials said Bovino does not report to the Border Patrol chief or the CBP commissioner, as other Border Patrol sector chiefs do. The law enforcement official said Bovino reports directly to Noem, who called him the commanding general of the Border Patrol in a recent op-ed.

Although the list of ICE field office directors who could soon be removed from their positions was compiled by Lewandowski and Bovino, it is also being closely held at the White House by Miller, DHS officials said.

Officials did not know the names of those on the list, but said they would likely be directors whose regions are underperforming in terms of arrest numbers or those who have pushed back against some of the more aggressive tactics backed by Miller and carried out by the Border Patrol.