Markwayne Mullin made clear from the start of his tenure as secretary that he wanted the Department of Homeland Security to stay out of the headlines and adopt a quieter approach after a tumultuous year under his predecessor, Kristi Noem.<\/p>\n
He paused plans to convert industrial warehouses into immigrant detention centers. Immigration agents have been told to stop entering homes without judicial warrants. His department has tried to rebrand Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as \u201cNICE\u201d officers<\/a>, at the urging of President Trump.<\/p>\n The change in tactics stemmed from fears within the Republican Party<\/a> that the crackdown could cost them voters in this year\u2019s midterm elections. But the image overhaul has drawn backlash from some ardent Trump supporters who want the administration to dramatically ramp up arrests and broaden its focus beyond immigrants with criminal records. And it has raised questions about the direction of the department as Mr. Mullin and White House officials send mixed signals about how aggressively they plan to deliver on Mr. Trump\u2019s signature campaign promise of mass deportations.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how you do a mass deportation program quietly,\u201d said Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, which was formed as a branch of the conservative Heritage Foundation. \u201cThe president ran loudly on it. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s something to shy away from.\u201d<\/p>\n White House officials have rejected claims they\u2019re softening on immigration.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the people out there saying, \u2018President Trump\u2019s getting weak on mass deportation,\u2019 you don\u2019t know what the hell you\u2019re talking about,\u201d Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix this week.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year will be a good year,\u201d Mr. Homan added. \u201cMass deportations are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Homan also pledged to deploy scores of immigration agents to New York if lawmakers passed measures<\/a> that restricted state and local officials from cooperating with ICE. Mr. Mullin later backed his claims<\/a> and said the department was \u201cnot slowing down one bit,\u201d<\/a> even as ICE data showed a recent dip in arrests.<\/p>\n But Mr. Mullin has taken pains in interviews to make clear the department is targeting what it calls the \u201cworst of the worst\u201d and moving away from the more indiscriminate tactics that swept up many noncriminals in major cities. He has said Americans would not see a repeat of the Minnesota operation, which drew widespread backlash after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by immigration officers amid protests.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not going into New York like another Minneapolis,\u201d Mr. Mullin said in an interview<\/a> with Fox Business on Thursday. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go after the felons.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, administration officials have tried to appease conservatives by repeatedly saying that no immigrants will be off the table if they are found living in the country illegally.<\/p>\n Recent polling has continued to show that most Americans say the federal government has gone too far in its efforts to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. But a growing share of Republicans now say the administration is doing too little on deportations, according to a poll released by the Pew Research Center<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n In a statement, the White House denied that the administration was significantly altering its approach to immigration enforcement. \u201cNobody is changing the administration\u2019s immigration enforcement agenda,\u201d Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s highest priority has always been the deportation of illegal alien criminals who endanger American communities.\u201d<\/p>\n The Homeland Security Department also emphasized that it was not scaling back. \u201cICE is NOT slowing down,\u201d Lauren Bis, a department spokeswoman, said in a statement.<\/p>\n The latest public data from ICE through early April show that daily average arrests have dipped to about 1,000, from a peak of about 1,500 in January amid the crackdown in Minnesota. That 1,000 arrests a day was about four times higher than during the last year of the Biden administration, when about 250 people a day were detained by ICE.<\/p>\n During the first year of the second Trump administration, the federal government deported about 230,000 people who had been arrested inside the country and another 270,000 at the border, a New York Times analysis of federal data showed<\/a>. The number of deportations from interior arrests alone surpassed the total during the entire four years of the Biden administration.<\/p>\n