Trump administration demotes acting ICE director over 'anger' with 'migrant arrests and deportations' results
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Politics
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Politics
US President Donald Trump has reportedly been growing 'angry' over the pace of deportations, leading to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Caleb Vitello being reassigned.
Prior to his return to the White House, Donald Trump stated he would embark on the 'largest deportation programme in history', claiming he'd deport 'maybe as many as 20 million' people.
Since being sworn in as the 47th president of the US, he's signed off on multiple executive orders in a bid to put his plan into action.
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Trump said: "We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came."
Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has ordered the likes of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and the Bureau of Prisons to go through their databases for information on undocumented migrants to locate them, detain them and then send them out of the US on deportation flights.
In just four days after Trump was sworn in, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) statistics showed over 1,000 people had been removed or repatriated, BBC reports. And on January 26, 956 people from across Chicago, Newark, New Jersey and Miami are reported as having been arrested by ICE and other agencies.
However, while many arrests have been made, a source says Trump is 'angry' with the progress being made to deport people, NBC News reports.
So much so, Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Caleb Vitello has since been transferred to a different role, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Politico, with an unannounced replacement set to take the reigns and double down further.
Vitello's role is to now oversee 'all field and enforcement operations: finding, arresting, and deporting illegal aliens,' the source told the outlet.
A new chief of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement has yet to be announced. UNILAD has contacted ICE for comment.
White House spokesperson, Kush Desai, told NBC News in a statement: "After four years of the Biden administration’s outright incompetence and negligence, the Trump administration has re-established a no-nonsense enforcement of and respect for the immigration laws of the United States.
"Hundreds of violent, predatory, and gang-affiliated criminal illegal aliens have already been rounded up and deported by ICE since President Trump took office — and the Trump administration is aligned on securing our borders and ensuring that mass deportations are conducted quickly and effectively to put Americans and America First."