The Trump administration claims morale has never been higher at ICE but in reality, its “physical infrastructure is crumbling,” according to a new report from Nick Miroff, in The Atlantic.
You can hardly blame the officers and agents for being disgruntled. What’s worse is that Stephen Miller’s ethnic cleansing demands are harming our national safety.
Via The Atlantic:
Having insisted for years that capturing criminals is its priority, ICE is now shelving major criminal investigations to prioritize civil immigration arrests, grabbing asylum seekers at their courthouse hearings, handcuffing mothers as their U.S.-citizen children cry, chasing day laborers through Home Depot parking lots. As angry onlookers attempt to shame ICE officers with obscenities, and activists try to dox them, officers are retreating further behind masks and tactical gear.
…
“Morale is in the crapper,” another former investigative agent told me.
A common theme of my conversations was dissatisfaction with the White House’s focus on achieving 1 million deportations annually, a goal that many ICE employees view as logistically unrealistic and physically exhausting. The agency has never done more than a quarter of that number in a single year. But ICE’s top officials are so scared of being fired—the White House has staged two purges already—that they don’t push back, another official told me.
Miller has made clear that not hitting that goal is not an option. He and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called ICE’s top leaders to Washington in May and berated them in a tense meeting. Miller set a daily arrest quota of 3,000, a fourfold increase over the average during Trump’s first few months. Veteran officials murmured and shifted in their seats, but Miller steamrolled anyone who spoke up.
The Trump/Republican Beautiful For Billionaires Bill just gave ICE more money than the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Bureau of Prisons combined, The New Republic reported.
Still, no matter how big and powerful, an agency relies on a staff motivated to do the work. Let’s hope there are not enough Americans willing to get on board with the fascist behemoth Trump and Miller are planning
