Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump “is seeking to lower the profile of his mass deportation effort, and has directed his top advisers to adopt a new approach on one of his central campaign promises.”
According to the report, Trump has had conversations with his top advisors and First Lady Melania Trump in which he’s indicated that he’s “become convinced that some of his administration’s deportation policies have gone too far, and voters don’t like the term ‘mass deportation.’”
The desire for an immigration reset is being driven in part by Trump’s White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who believes the president’s immigration team has turned one of his marquee issues into more of a challenging issue ahead of the midterms, the people said. As a result, the administration is attempting to change not only how it talks about the issue—but also what actual enforcement looks like on the ground.
The report also explains that White House border czar Tom Homan has been behind the shift, steering the agency back to basics — prioritizing “bread-and-butter arrests” and focusing on criminal aliens already in local custody and ready for transfer.
Now, another report from the New York Times, reveals that ICE arrests are averaging more than 1,100 per day this year — nearly double last spring’s pace of roughly 600 — and that “custodial” arrests are driving those numbers. It’s also not surprising that Republican-led states with strong federal-local cooperation generate far more of these transfers, while sanctuary jurisdictions generate far fewer.
Some of the biggest totals are coming out of places like Florida and San Antonio, where there were no headline-grabbing raids.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles and Chicago — cities that were hit with high-profile enforcement operations — have actually seen arrest numbers fall steeply in recent months. Sanctuary cities, however, are largely flat.
The loudest operations weren’t always the most productive, and the quietest ones were getting the job done.