Donald Trump has blasted his homeland security chief after it was leaked that ICE had told agents to soften their brutal immigration crackdown.
The president launched into a behind-closed-doors rant about Markwayne Mullin after the press began to report a pullback on arresting undocumented migrants without a criminal past, according to CNN.
Top ICE officials told agents on a leadership call over the weekend that the agency would no longer arrest people without convictions or pending charges, the Daily Wire reported. They also said there would be no more “collateral arrests” of undocumented migrants that officers come across while chasing their intended targets.
The White House immediately denied those reports. Trump personally got on the phone with Fox News on Tuesday to insist that ICE would still target anyone present in the country without permission. DHS sources told the network the leaked weekend call was a “miscommunication.”
Trump also directed his ire at the Homeland Security Secretary as his administration scrambled to deny the rumors, sources told CNN.
Trump, 80, campaigned hard on drastically reducing migration to the U.S. and has delivered on that promise since retaking the White House with a sweeping deportation drive. Legal experts and advocates have slammed the move as illegal and a violation of migrants’ constitutional rights.
His administration has justified its crackdown by claiming that it is targeting the “worst of the worst” offenders amid an “invasion” of criminals from abroad. DHS statistics have consistently shown that roughly 70 percent of detainees have no criminal history at all.
The flip-flop reveals how DHS has increasingly fallen out of step with the White House agenda since Mullin, 49, took over the department in March. Trump appointed the former Oklahoma Senator after firing former Secretary Kristi Noem over a run of scandals under her leadership.
Noem’s departure came after lawmakers in the House and Senate grilled her about the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens during anti-ICE protests in Minnesota earlier in January, along with alleged corruption at the department and her rumored extramarital affair with a top adviser.
Mullin has publicly backed the president’s hardline immigration stance while privately saying he is concerned about ICE agents picking up migrants who simply happen to be in the area when a raid is taking place, sources told CNN. One official described him as “definitely out of step with President Trump and the base” on the issue.
Trump’s anger about the weekend leak follows him also taking aim at Mullin for briefly pausing vehicle stops after two fatal shootings in Texas and Maine earlier this summer. Neither of the migrants killed in those incidents had been the immediate target of enforcement operations.
The president is anxious not to give voters the impression he has weakened his immigration stance ahead of the midterms. He took office last year after promising to end messy military entanglements and boost the economy. His war with Iran and widespread unaffordability have since driven his ratings to historic lows, helping Democrats gain a 7-point lead in the November race.
His immigration crackdown has also driven a wedge through the broad-church coalition that helped him win in 2024. Trump performed strongly with Hispanic voters in those polls, kicking off his second term with a net approval of +6 among that demographic.
Latest polls show that number has now plummeted to -34 as Latino voters say they feel that their community has been unfairly targeted by his administration’s policies.
GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who faces a tough battle to keep her seat in a Hispanic-majority Florida district, has even broken with the president publicly on the issue, warning him that “the same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and DHS for comment on this story.
