Stephen Miller is turning up the heat on federal immigration authorities, instructing officers to “supercharge” deportations beyond their already record-breaking purge of illegal immigrants.
In a tense meeting last week, Miller and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem laid down the law, ordering deputies present to arrest at least 3,000 illegal immigrants per day going forward, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
How the two Trump advisors arrived at the figure is unclear. Still, it is three times the number of arrests that the Trump administration was making during the earlier days of its mass deportation implementation.
The increased pressure comes amid plummeting numbers at the U.S. borders, where illegal crossings have fallen to anemic or nonexistent levels unseen since the 1960s. It also signals an increasingly aggressive approach that has materialized in places like Nantucket, Massachusetts, where on Tuesday, federal authorities arrested dozens of suspected illegal immigrant criminals.
The May 21 meeting was the fiercest attendees had seen Miller, President Trump’s architect of his deportation strategy, four individuals told Axios.
There, he demanded that field office directors and special agents in charge increase arrest and deportation daily metrics to his new goal as soon as possible, pointing to historic surges in illegal immigration that took place under the Biden administration.
Noem, in contrast, took a milder approach, asking ICE officials for their opinions as well as Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign aide and current Special Government Employee advising DHS.
The tone of Miller’s remarks left those present feeling that their jobs are in jeopardy if they do not fulfill his mandate, two sources said, while a third characterized the speech as an attempt to motivate the ICE workforce.
It was not the first time Miller had yelled at immigration officials about failing to meet expectations, they recalled.
Immigration officers hold about 49,000 people in ICE custody, according to the latest data available for May. That figure represents a significantly larger population than what Congress had appropriated funds for since Trump took office.
Key to the approach will be unprecedented access immigration authorities have used to discover the whereabouts of illegal immigrants, even as they attend court hearings in a bid to remain in the United States. Federal officials last week began to arrive at hearings for illegal immigrants, detaining them after they had met with a judge, according to Reuters.
A strategy of controversial deportations has been snarled in court disputes following the March deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant living in Maryland who was deported to El Salvador despite a court order. Trump officials contend that they honored the judge’s ruling and that the plane had already left U.S. airspace by the time they received notice.
House Republicans, responding to the flurry of arrests, appropriated an additional $147 billion in immigration funds over the next 10 years as part of the “big, beautiful” bill passed last week.
In the meantime, ICE and DHS are posting requests for additional staff, bed space, and resources from organizations willing to partner with both agencies.
“Keeping President Trump’s promise to deport illegal aliens is something the administration takes seriously,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “We are committed to aggressively and efficiently removing illegal aliens from the United States, and ensuring our law enforcement officers have the resources necessary to do so. The safety of the American people depends upon it.”
