President Donald Trump’s hand-picked immigration goon-in-chief is facing a fresh wave of scrutiny after an underwhelming data drop.
Markwayne Mullin has already faced intense blowback for what MAGA hardliners say is his soft approach to immigration since he replaced fired Kristi Noem at the top of the Department of Homeland Security in March.
Absolutists think he is reneging on Trump’s mandate to purge the U.S. of so-called “illegal aliens,” with an overly level-headed speech regarding borders igniting another firestorm over the weekend.
“This narrative that it steals American jobs is true in some industries. It’s not true for all industries,” Mullin said, inviting a flurry of punches from MAGA figures including right-wing agitator Laura Loomer and the movement’s architect, Steve Bannon.
Now, Mullin has a new beast to contend with. Data given to Politico suggests that deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is under the DHS, have flatlined this year, despite Mullin’s pledge to accelerate the administration’s deportation push.
An insider familiar with the figures told Politico that the number of deportations has fluctuated, never holding steady and, overall, matching the numbers delivered by Noem’s ill-fated tenure.
This doesn’t bode well for Mullin. Noem, nicknamed ‘ICE Barbie’ by the Daily Beast for her love of uniformed photo opps, was dumped when immigration enforcement controversies, agency management, and political missteps combined into a maelstrom that Trump considered too much.
Mullin, her replacement, has already rankled MAGA and Trump. He delivered the diktat that there would be a temporary halt to the practice of stopping people in their vehicles after ICE agents shot and killed two unarmed people within the space of a few days last month. Trump intervened and announced the policy would not be revoked after seeing the intense backlash.
In late June, Mullin told Breitbart News that deportation numbers in 2026 would very soon outpace all of 2025. A second Politico source said that the ICE detainee headcount has hovered at roughly 68,000 of late.
That steady figure signals deportations aren’t outpacing new roundups, with agents averaging roughly 1,500 arrests and bookings daily—a step down from a peak of nearly 1,900 a day under Noem.
“Everyone is saying it’s better than it was under Noem, but it’s not,” the person said. “Reality doesn’t back it up.”
The second source added that the average number of arrests from the heavy-handed immigration squad also decreased at the end of July into August.
The 3,000-a-day goal touted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller remains elusive, another bleak sign for Mullin.
Bannon, a power player in the MAGAsphere, tried to move the needle after Mullin’s comments at the National Governors Association over the weekend, going as far as to name a potential successor to the under-fire former plumber from Oklahoma.
Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, told Politico’s Playbook on Monday, “Mullin is the wrong guy at the wrong time for the wrong job—a time when we need focus on ‘mass deportations,’ we get an amnesty advocate.”
The “amnesty” jibe most likely stems from a comment where Mullin appeared to favor legal immigration. “We want to take care of Americans first. It’s our economy. It’s our homeland, but there’s a way to utilize labor. We’re we’re we’re not having the participation rate we need to, and we can plug those holes,” he said.
This peeved the host of the War Room podcast, who floated Bill Pulte to replace Mullin. “MAGA wants President Trump to detail ‘Pitbull’ Pulte to DHS,” Bannon said.
When confronted with the data, DHS issued a statement boasting that more than 3 million unauthorized immigrants have left the country via arrests and self-deportations, adding that “as of July 12, we have now deported over 985,000 illegal aliens and arrested over 1 million illegal aliens.” However, the agency declined to refute any of the specific statistics shared with Politico.
The Daily Beast asked the agency to comment on the specifics. It did not. “Secretary Mullin has been clear: if you come to the United States illegally, you will be detained and deported. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are enforcing the law and making America safe again,” a spokesperson said, before sharing the same boast that Politico received.
