ICE officers around the country got verbal orders this weekend to stop arresting immigrants who have no criminal record. According to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, the Trump administration now says the guidance was a mistake and has reversed it.
Jennie Taer broke the story Saturday for The Daily Wire. Citing agency sources, she reported that ICE officers were told they could only arrest undocumented immigrants who had criminal convictions or pending charges "for the time being."
Melugin said on X Saturday night that he had talked by phone with Trump and with nine ICE and Department of Homeland Security sources. According to him, the guidance was real.
"Yes, this verbal guidance did go out to ICE offices across the country last night," Melugin wrote. "I've spoken with ICE agents who received it & were shocked & frustrated by it."
He said no one could tell him where the order came from.
"It's unclear who it started with," he wrote. "However, I'm told it's erroneous, was some type of 'miscommunication' during conversations about prioritizing 'worst first,' and there is no change in immigration enforcement policy."
Melugin said Trump told him that anyone in the country illegally is still "on the table" for arrest and deportation. He also reported that new guidance went out to ICE field offices that night to reverse the earlier message, and that ICE sources confirmed they received it. Under the new guidance, arrests of immigrants without criminal records, including "collaterals," will continue.
DHS then posted its own denial.
"This is false. No one is off the table," the department wrote on X. "Anyone in our country illegally will be arrested and deported."
Melugin still couldn't explain how the order went out.
"I'm not really sure what happened here," he wrote.
The mix-up comes as some Republicans have started criticizing the administration's immigration crackdown ahead of the midterms. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) recently accused Trump of "betrayal," and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) has also spoken out.