The Trump administration is not satisfied with the pace of deportations and is therefore going to replace some officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with Border Patrol (CBP) officers, whose tactics are more aggressive than those employed by ICE agents.

The government has not officially announced the changes, but several media outlets have reported that a dozen ICE directors, who oversee 25 local offices nationwide, will be reassigned in the coming days. At least half of the vacancies will be filled by CBP officials.

“The mentality is CBP does what they’re told, and the administration thinks ICE isn’t getting the job done,” an official from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees both agencies, told CBS. “So CBP will do it.”

The heads of ICE in Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Diego have already been relieved of their duties and transferred to other positions within the federal agency, according to the Washington Examiner.

While the most recent polls reveal that a majority of the U.S. population considers the migrant detention campaign too aggressive, the government has been expressing frustration with the opposite for months. The chief architect of Trump’s deportation policy, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, set a target of 3,000 apprehensions per day months ago, but the average for September, the last month for which data is available, is 1,178 arrests. At the current rate, ICE will not be able to meet the goal of deporting one million migrants per year, as the administration had intended in order to achieve the largest deportation in history, in line with Trump’s wishes.

Giving CBP a more prominent role demonstrates that the administration is committed to a more aggressive campaign. Border agents have been involved in some of the most brutal migrant arrests in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.

In Chicago in early October, Border Patrol agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter into an apartment building while families slept, as part of Operation Midway Blitz against migrants. Furthermore, Greg Bovino, the CBP officer in charge of anti-immigration operations in Chicago, violated court orders prohibiting violent tactics by throwing a tear gas canister at protesters demonstrating against the raids, an incident captured on video.

Operation Midway Blitz resulted in more than 1,800 arrests and allegations of excessive use of force. In a complaint filed in early October in the Northern District Court of Illinois, several media outlets, protesters, and members of the clergy accused immigration agents of “a pattern of extreme brutality” intended to “silence the press and civilians.” Following that lawsuit, Judge Sara Ellis prohibited officers from using tear gas and other chemical agents against a crowd without first issuing two warnings.

Bovino and other officers ignored the order. Therefore, on Tuesday, Ellis ordered Bovino to submit to the court all use-of-force reports from Border Patrol agents involved in the Chicago operation since September 2. In addition, the judge ordered him to appear in court at the end of each business day to personally deliver a report on the day’s arrests and incidents.

Bovino, who reports directly to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, has defended the violence with which agents attacked protesters in Chicago using tear gas and pepper spray, calling their actions “exemplary.” The CBP official, along with Corey Lewandowski, an advisor to Noem, compiled the list of ICE directors who will be reassigned.

From the border to the rest of the country

CBP has traditionally operated only within a 100-mile radius of the border, but since Trump returned to the White House, the agency has participated in anti-migration operations beyond those limits.

Customs and Border Protection has deployed more than 1,500 agents to arrest immigrants in cities across the country and assist with deportations, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks told NBC News. By comparison, ICE has 8,500 agents working on the operations. One advantage in terms of boosting arrests is that CBP can contribute more resources to the anti-immigration campaign than ICE, such as Black Hawk helicopters.

Furthermore, there is a difference in approach, at least in theory. ICE maintains that its objective is to apprehend criminals, even though the vast majority of those in its custody have no criminal record. That, at least, was its purpose for years. CBP’s objective, however, is to detain all individuals without legal resident status. Some ICE officials have criticized the fact that while they spend time investigating those they intend to detain, border agents conduct mass raids on stores like Home Depot.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson declined to comment on the restructuring plans first reported by The New York Times, but said in a statement that “the president’s entire team is working in lock step to implement the president’s policy agenda, and the tremendous results from securing the border to deporting criminal illegal aliens speak for themselves.”

The administration claims to have deported more than 400,000 people since Trump returned to the White House and expects to deport a total of 600,000 by the end of his first year in office. These figures, however, include people whose entry into the country has been denied at the border, so they are not deportations in the strictest sense.

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