During a tense meeting with ICE officials, Trump aide Stephen Miller strongly suggested that agents target convenience stores for undocumented migrants in an effort to up their arrest tallies, according to a report in The Washington Examiner.
The outlet spoke with three current and former federal immigration officials who recounted how Miller upbraided about a dozen ICE agents for their low deportation numbers and suggested where they might find more potential marks.
“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,” an official told the news outlet.
“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” the official recounted.
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When one official spoke up to say they were targeting "criminals" and not the "general illegal immigration population," as "Tom Homan says every time he's on TV," Miller reportedly exploded, demanding, "What do you mean you’re going after criminals?"
Laszlo Baksay, ICE deputy assistant director of media affairs, disputed the report, telling The Examiner, “Stephen Miller did not say many of the things you state."
Nevertheless, an ICE official described the atmosphere at the Department of Homeland Security as "a fearful environment. Everybody in leadership is afraid. … There’s no morale. Everybody is demoralized.”
"ICE officers tasked with arresting and transporting illegal immigrants inside the U.S. have lamented internally about the massive task they have been assigned...at a time when the White House keeps moving the goal post, according to two officials," the report said.
Miller recently told Fox News's Sean Hannity, "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, 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."
Read The Washington Examiner story here.