Trump Revamps ICE Leadership for Mass Deportation Plan

29 May at 8:11 pm

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Trump Revamps ICE Leadership for Mass Deportation Plan \ Newslooks \ Washington DC \ Mary Sidiqi \ Evening Edition \ Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced sweeping leadership changes as part of President Trump’s intensifying deportation agenda. The agency plans to drastically scale up daily arrests, aiming for 3,000 per day. This follows additional staff shakeups and funding requests to expand enforcement capabilities.

Quick Looks

ICE announces major leadership changes in enforcement divisions.
Kenneth Genalo retires; Marcos Charles appointed acting head of ERO.
Derek Gordon named acting head of Homeland Security Investigations.
ICE says changes align with Trump’s mass deportation strategy.
White House seeks 3,000 ICE arrests daily, up from current 656/day.
Recent ICE shakeups include multiple reassignments of top officials.
Deportation push hindered by stagnant officer numbers and logistics.
Proposed funding aims to remove 1 million immigrants annually.
Plan includes expanding detention capacity to 100,000 beds.
Proposal also seeks to add 10,000 ICE officers and agents.

Deep Look

ICE Restructures Leadership to Power Trump’s Expanded Deportation Plan

The Biden-to-Trump transition at the White House has already reshaped immigration enforcement, but this week marks a pivotal structural shift within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the agency accelerates plans for mass deportation.

On Tuesday, ICE announced a sweeping internal reorganization, including leadership changes at its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branches—two divisions central to President Donald Trump’s plan to dramatically increase deportations of undocumented immigrants.

The moves come as the administration sets a new target of 3,000 arrests per day, a goal confirmed by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who told Fox News that the number could increase even further as resources and personnel expand.

“President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day,” Miller declared, reinforcing the administration’s hardline approach to immigration enforcement.

Key Leadership Changes Announced

Among the most significant changes:

Kenneth Genalo, the acting head of Enforcement and Removal Operations, has announced his retirement. He will remain involved with the agency as a special government employee, providing guidance during the transition.
Robert Hammer, who has led Homeland Security Investigations in an acting capacity, will move to a new headquarters-based leadership role.
Marcos Charles will take over as the acting director of ERO, the division responsible for arresting and removing non-citizens.
Derek Gordon has been appointed acting head of HSI, the branch tasked with investigating crimes like human trafficking, drug smuggling, and immigration fraud.

ICE also announced a series of lower-profile leadership changes across various departments, aiming to streamline operations and enhance coordination in preparation for expanded enforcement.

A Massive Expansion in Daily Arrests

ICE’s current operations are far from the 3,000-arrest benchmark. Between January 20 and May 19, the agency recorded 78,155 arrests, averaging just 656 per day. To achieve the new goal, ICE would need to more than quadruple its daily arrests—an expansion without precedent in the agency’s history.

This level of increase would require:

Thousands of additional officers dedicated to field operations.
A significant rise in the number of detention beds for holding detainees.
Enhanced logistical capacity, including transportation networks and deportation flights.

And that’s precisely what the Trump administration is pursuing.

Funding the Deportation Machine

The White House is pushing Congress to approve a substantial funding increase to facilitate this ambitious immigration agenda. The proposed package includes:

Funds to support the removal of 1 million immigrants annually.
An expansion to 100,000 detention beds, more than doubling current capacity.
Hiring of 10,000 additional ICE officers and criminal investigators.

Such investments would transform ICE into a much larger and more mobile force, capable of sustained, high-volume arrests and removals.

Critics, however, warn of logistical bottlenecks, legal obstacles, and humanitarian concerns. Even with increased staffing and funding, the challenge of identifying, apprehending, and processing hundreds of thousands of individuals remains daunting.

Challenges in Execution

Experts say the current infrastructure isn’t built for such scale. ICE’s workforce—particularly its Enforcement and Removal Officers (EROs)—has remained largely unchanged in recent years.

Beyond personnel limitations, the agency faces:

Insufficient detention space, often leading to the early release of detainees.
A limited fleet of planes to handle mass deportation logistics.
Court backlogs that delay removal proceedings, creating bottlenecks.
Legal challenges from immigrant rights groups, civil liberties advocates, and Democratic-led states.

Nevertheless, the administration is proceeding with aggressive planning.

Recent Staffing Turmoil at ICE

The latest restructuring follows a pattern. In February, ICE’s then-acting director was reassigned, along with two other top officials, signaling early shifts in alignment with Trump’s evolving vision.

The reshuffles reflect the administration’s commitment to ensuring ICE’s top leadership is ideologically and operationally aligned with its immigration strategy.

In its official statement, ICE said the new appointments will “help ICE achieve President Trump and the American people’s mandate of arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens and making American communities safe.”

Trump’s Deportation Doctrine Returns

Mass deportation has long been a centerpiece of Trump’s immigration agenda. During both presidential campaigns, Trump promised to remove millions of undocumented immigrants and repeatedly vowed to end what he calls “catch and release” immigration policies.

The reactivation of this agenda has already begun to reshape federal enforcement, and the internal reorganization at ICE underscores the seriousness with which the administration intends to implement it.

Yet, analysts caution that the gap between policy ambitions and operational capacity remains wide.

“There’s no question that the administration is trying to scale up,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former DHS official and current policy analyst. “But deporting 1 million people a year would require resources, legal authority, and public support far beyond what ICE currently has.”

The Road Ahead

As the White House presses forward, ICE will remain at the center of national debate—both as the enforcer of controversial immigration directives and as the focus of legal, logistical, and political scrutiny.

Whether or not the administration can meet its lofty arrest targets, the message is clear: Immigration enforcement is back at the top of the federal agenda, and ICE is being remade from the inside out to meet that demand.