Not Tough Enough for ICE?

Terry H. Schwadron

April 7, 2019

President Trump’s sudden withdrawal this week of a nominee to head ICE because he wants to seek someone “tougher” is proving an eyebrow raiser.

It’s not so much because there was a problem with his nominee — Ron Vitiello, 30-year Border Patrol veteran — but because it reflects internal White House politics that favor the recommendations of immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller over Jared Kushner, who apparently has been promoting more cooperation with Mexico.

Vitiello was to have joined Trump for a visit to the border in California on Friday, but he was left off the trip at the last minute, hours after the White House notified Congress that the president had rescinded his nomination.

That’s weird enough, though probably not unusual for a boss who announces hirings and firing by tweet. But it also was confusing to senators who already were moving to confirm Vitiello.

For me, I got stuck on thinking that there is a “tougher” candidate in mind. Is the president thinking about Chuck Norris? The Rock? Or is this yet another step in hiring only people who are willing to accept a total mind-meld with Trump — and Miller. After all, people are so fearful about ICE raids on workplaces and public gathering spots that there are reports of increased absenteeism around the country. Not tough enough?

Just for nothing, how tough is is to threaten shutting down the border only to walk away from it a day or two later?

Vitiello apparently stepped into appointment hot water by raising a question or two about what the president had in mind about closing the entire southern border in response to growing numbers of families trying to move north from Central America to seek asylum.

The new migration push over the several weeks has prompted the president to halt all federal aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, reassign border patrol agents from elsewhere around the country, suggest more National Guardsmen, and, to threaten to shut the border to all traffic — a move that several White House advisers apparently have privately opposed for its ill effects on trade and U.S. jobs. Trump backed down just days later, preferring to offer Mexico and Central Americans a one-year warning on such a shutdown, and proposing instead to slap tariffs on every imported car from Mexico, something that flies in the face of the new trade agreement that the president has been crowing about but that still must be approved in Congress.

Vitiello, currently the top official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), would have been Trump’s first Senate-confirmed director of the agency with a deportation and detention role that is central to the president’s promises to crack down on illegal immigration.

Vitiello has had to explain away 2016 social media posts that mocked politicians.

According to The Washington Post,Vitiello has advocated for the president’s policies, but he has been relatively restrained in public statements about enforcement matters and does not make bombastic statements. Vitiello could not be reached for comment, but a senior administration official who spoke to him said Vitiello was blindsided by Trump’s decision to withdraw his nomination.

Apparently Trump recently told Miller he would be in charge of handling all immigration and border affairs. Miller will play a key role in picking Trump’s third nominee to lead ICE, aides said. The previous nominations had languished and the candidates withdrew. Miller has encouraged the president to take harder stances with Mexico than Jared Kushner, who has sought instead to deepen cooperation with the Mexican government.

Meanwhile, administration officials said they could not understand why the president would pull his ICE nominee at a moment when Homeland Security officials say the nation’s immigration enforcement system is at “breaking point.”

During Trump’s first year in office, ICE arrests in the U.S. interior rose though the most recent ICE statistics indicate that interior arrests have declined in recent months, as more agents are sent to cope with the surge of border crossings. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, and ICE, have resorted to quickly processing and releasing thousands of migrants into the United States because they lack space to detain them, and waits for court hearings can last months or years.

Trump has the perfect right to name whom he pleases, of course, but his appointments seem to eliminate any consideration of thought beyond sloganeering.

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