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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced sweeping leadership changes Thursday as part of an effort to dramatically ramp up arrests of illegal migrants.
The “leadership realignment” comes as Trump administration officials push for ICE to make a “minimum” of 3,000 arrests per day – up from the 1,800 per day quota the White House initially demanded in January.
As part of the shake-up, Kenneth Genalo is out as the head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division – the branch tasked with executing arrests and deportations.
Genalo “decided to retire and will continue to serve the public as a special government employee to ICE,” the agency said in a statement.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Acting Executive Associate Director Robert Hammer has also been reassigned to a “critical leadership position.” HSI is a law enforcement agency that has been supporting ICE in making arrests during deportation raids.
Career ICE officials Marcos Charles and Derek Gordon will replace Genalo and Hammer at ICE and HSI, respectively.
In total, more than half a dozen personnel changes were made at ERO, HSI and other ICE divisions Thursday, according to the agency.
“Organizational realignments will help ICE achieve President Trump and the American people’s mandate of arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens and making American communities safe,” ICE said in a statement.
The changes are aimed at “increasing operational tempo,” the agency said, noting that it “achieved its highest number of arrests in its history this week.”
The realignment comes days after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly expressed their frustrations with the current level of arrests to ICE leadership at a May 21 meeting, according to Axios.
Noem and Miller reportedly demanded that ICE triple daily arrest totals to 3,000 per day.
Miller confirmed the figure during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day,” the White House official said. “And President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day, so we can get all of the Biden illegals that were flooded into our country for four years out of our country.”
Trump’s goal of achieving the largest deportation operation in history has so far largely been focused on illegal migrants who have criminal records or deportation orders.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said at the end of April that 139,000 people had been deported in the first three months of the administration, and even more had been detained.
