The Department of Homeland Security has scrapped the fleet of garishly branded ICE vehicles that agents warned made them sitting ducks.
DHS has returned to unmarked cars in the field, stripping the “Protect the Homeland” branding officers feared put them at risk, Politico reported Monday. It is one of a string of reversals by new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, 48, of decisions made by his predecessor Kristi Noem, 54.
Politico also suggested Mullin had tapped Brian Cavanaugh as undersecretary for management, describing him as aligned with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and a former point person for DHS funding at the Office of Management and Budget.
That detail in part backs up what PunchUp reported in its “On the Ropes” Sunday mailout. Three separate sources told the Daily Beast’s new investigations Substack that Mullin is little more than a “puppet” fronting a department now ruled by the White House. One DHS source named Cavanaugh—“Susie’s guy”—as the real power, expected to soon replace Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar. A senior ICE source, asked if that tracked, responded with a “100%” emoji.
DHS said Cavanaugh and Edgar were “key players in the secretary’s team. The White House said: “Per usual the Daily Beast and their so-called ‘sources’ have no idea what they’re talking about,” and insisted that Trump “has full faith and confidence in his entire team from Stephen Miller to Tom Homan to the hardworking staff at DHS.”
The vehicle reversal marks the end of a divisive saga that the Beast has reported on for nearly a year. The Beast revealed last August that DHS was rolling out around 2,500 dark navy trucks and SUVs bearing ICE lettering and a “Defend the Homeland” motto. Agents objected furiously. They warned the conspicuous cars would make them, in one source’s words, “a bullseye.”
The Beast then reported in March that the cars sat idle in parking garages nationwide. They were viewed as useless for discreet street-level ICE enforcement.
The bulk order had been placed by Noem’s then-deputy, Madison Sheahan, 29, who ordered them without verifying that agents could use them. She departed in January in the wake of the shooting of unarmed protester Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Noem was fired by Donald Trump two months later as part of the fallout.
Mullin, Politico reports, has spent three months burying her legacy. He has mothballed her flashiest tactics, scrapping a plan to expand mega-warehouse detention sites and pulling back from flooding cities with agents. “It’s by design,” one person familiar with DHS strategy told the outlet. “Quieter and smarter operations. Finally.”
Not everyone on the right is happy with Mullin. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander Noem elevated to lead her aggressive raids, has become the loudest internal critic. “You want results? You create fear,” he wrote on X. “Anything less is just expensive theater.”
DHS insists ICE is not slowing down, saying it has been “delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens.” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said “deportation numbers continue to increase” and called the border the “most secure in history.”
Tom Latchem exposes the secrets, scandals, and stories that powerful people and institutions want to keep under wraps. Follow all of his reporting at PunchUp on Substack.
