Mullin’s Mark On Dhs: Ending The Drama Noem Unleashed

Three months into Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s tenure, he is succeeding in his pledge to get his department out of the headlines.

Mullin and his deputies have adopted a lower-profile approach to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, mothballing the flashy and aggressive tactics employed by his predecessor Kristi Noem. While the Department of Homeland Security continues to deport large numbers of unauthorized immigrants, it is making fewer arrests in public, holding back from deploying fresh waves of immigration agents to hotspots and has scrapped a plan to expand mega-warehouse detention facilities.

It’s all with the aim of fulfilling the president’s pledge for large-scale deportations — without attracting the kind of public attention that ignited widespread protests.

“It’s by design,” said one person familiar with strategic discussions within DHS, who like others was granted anonymity to speak freely about the conversations inside its agencies. “Just like Mullin and [acting ICE chief David] Venturella want — quieter and smarter operations. Finally.”

While the administration has continued to promise “mass deportations” and occasionally still shares slick videos on social media of deportation operations, there are fewer arrests in broad daylight by teams of officers. Instead of arresting immigrants in their homes or on public streets, Mullin and other administration officials have promoted agreements that allow local and state law enforcement agencies to help identify and detain immigrants who are already in custody after being arrested for other crimes.

And, according to Trump officials and people close to the administration, there is little expectation that DHS will again send large numbers of immigration agents into major U.S. cities ahead of the midterms, especially since the White House faced significant public backlash this year after immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens during a crackdown in Minneapolis, and were forced to defend the agency’s operations.

Mark Krikorian, the head of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank which favors restrictions on immigration to the United States, said he’d give Mullin an “incomplete” grade given that the DHS chief has only been in the role for a few months and wants to see more action on workplace enforcement.

But, he added, Mullin has “done what President Trump wanted: an end to the drama.”

Mullin still has a lot of hurdles to clear. He is learning how to navigate the sprawling agency, and it could be easy to run afoul of a White House that cares deeply about how the immigration issue is handled. And the former Republican senator also continues to face pressure from the right to take whatever measures are necessary to meet President Donald Trump’s promise to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. He will often counter criticism with punchy rhetoric on social media.

Some of his choices haven’t gone over well. For example, Mullin suggested last month that the Trump administration could pull Customs and Border Protection officers from Newark Liberty International Airport, a busy hub near New York City, to help ICE agents manage protests over a New Jersey immigration detention facility that reopened earlier in the Trump administration. The idea prompted frustration from airlines who worried about further disruptions to air travel and shocked some officials inside the administration.

But those officials also note that the protests in May over New Jersey’s Delaney Hall never devolved into the kind of chaos and violence that marked several earlier operations in blue cities — likely in part because Mullin didn’t send in a surge of more agents, which could have intensified the conflict. Instead the administration sent only border czar Tom Homan, who was often sidelined during Noem’s tenure, to defuse the situation.

“We’ve avoided Delaney Hall in Newark turning into Portland, where there’s people out dancing in costumes in the street, playing music, and priests are getting pepper balled for God sakes,” said an administration official. “We’ve avoided these types of confrontations.”

DHS insisted that ICE is not slowing down and that “since day one, DHS law enforcement has been delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members and terrorists.”

The Homeland Security secretary and his deputies have also reversed a litany of other controversial decisions Noem made. In recent weeks, ICE nixed a plan criticized on both sides of the aisle to acquire warehouses across the country and use them as detention facilities for unauthorized immigrants. Mullin pledged to review warehouse acquisitions Noem already made that may have lacked “due diligence,” and DHS has already moved to sell some of the warehouses.

DHS said “these heinous criminals, once arrested, should be removed at lightning speed, not housed on American soil at the taxpayer’s expense. DHS is moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”

The administration also abandoned the accelerated training program it used to quickly deploy the thousands of new ICE agents hired over the past few months, while revetting the surge of new hires brought in during Noem’s tenure. And the agency has returned to using unmarked vehicles in the field, removing controversial “Protect the Homeland” branding — a Noem-era move that ICE officials worried put agents at risk.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson touted Mullin’s implementation of Trump’s immigration agenda and said “deportation numbers continue to increase,” and called the border the “most secure in history.”

Whether Mullin’s steps are enough to reverse the widespread criticism of the president's actions on immigration is unclear. The majority of Americans still disapprove of the administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, a figure that bodes poorly for Republicans’ efforts to retain both chambers of Congress going into the final two years of Trump’s presidency.

Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.), who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, said that even if Mullin makes DHS a “less salient political issue for Democrats,” there are still plenty of issues for his party to run on in the midterms. But he pointed to the recent arrest of a nun on the way to Mass as evidence backing up his skepticism “they are actually going to change DHS enough in order for the situation to be diffused” politically.

“I understand that in their own minds, they are trying to turn down the temperature, but the facts on the ground still don’t support that,” Magaziner said.

Core to the changes under Mullin’s watch has been an overhaul of the department’s management. Mullin decentralized decision-making at DHS, reversing a much-criticized Noem policy requiring personal approval for contracts worth more than $100,000. DHS said the changes to the contract review process “streamline the contract process and empower components to carry out their mission to protect the homeland and make America safe again.”

Mullin also removed incompetent and scandal-plagued officials Noem placed throughout the department, including Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks, who was accused of sex tourism. Banks has denied that his actions violated the rules around the conduct of Border Patrol officers.

Also cut was Madhu Gottumukkala, the embattled leader of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who faced considerable scrutiny for allegedly mishandling classified information and amid criticism that he didn’t have the needed experience to lead a major government agency. Gottumukkala has denied any wrongdoing or accusations of incompetence.

DHS said that “as with any transition, there have been some personnel changes” and argued Mullin is “building the best team to make America safe again.” The department also said that Mullin “employs a management style that empowers his agency heads, his staff, and every individual at the third- largest department in the U.S. government.”

The DHS secretary brought back experienced leaders within the department who had clashed with Noem and were removed, namely Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar and acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton.

He also tapped Brian Kavanaugh to serve as undersecretary of Homeland Security for management. Kavanaugh, viewed as someone aligned with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, served as the point person for DHS funding at the Office of Management and Budget, a background likely to help him manage the department’s complex finances and day-to-day operations.

The elevation of Venturella to helm ICE in the near-term has especially reassured some observers. Venturella, seen as close to Homan, has done stints at both ICE and private contractors and is seen as a steady set of hands.

“Dave is very much, ‘do the work, stay out of the news, keep your head down. Work hard. We know the mission, don’t get distracted. Go from there,’” the administration official said.

The recent nomination of little-known Oklahoma law enforcement official Lance Schroyer to be ICE director throws some uncertainty into ICE’s future. But Schroyer is a law enforcement veteran and Trump officials do not expect that Schroyer will make major changes at ICE beyond what Mullin and Venturella have already done.

Asked about the nomination of Schroyer and what it means for ICE, DHS listed out Schroyer’s law enforcement credentials and noted he currently serves as a “senior adviser” to Mullin who will “expand” upon the president’s vow to “arrest and deport the worst of the worst illegal aliens.”

Democrats, of course, still have sharp reservations about a department they see as having too much power and an immigration policy still able to be influenced by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a long-time immigration hardliner.

The changes to immigration enforcement have also particularly rattled some Trump backers and immigration hardliners. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander at-large that Noem elevated as the main leader of aggressive deportation operations during her tenure, has been the main critic of the “targeted enforcement” approach Mullin and Homan have embraced.

“You want results? You create fear. Mass operations. Roving patrols. Zero mixed signals,” Bovino wrote on X. “Anything less is just expensive theater.”

Ken Cuccinelli, who served as the deputy secretary of Homeland Security during the president’s first term, said Mullin is “conducting himself in the office exactly the way he said he would in the Senate confirmation hearing, and I respect that.” But he added that it’s still “hard to see how much time, effort and progress is being made in expanding the deportation pipeline.”

DHS pointed to the numbers, saying “in President Trump’s first year back in office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations.”

And even amid backlash from some immigration hawks, congressional Republicans, key to the department’s future, are largely voicing confidence in Mullin, their former colleague.

“He was hired to come in, take the wheel and get that thing back on the road,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), the top congressional appropriator for the Department of Homeland Security, in an interview. Amodei added his initial impressions of Mullin’s leadership are “excellent.”

Joining Amodei were some Democrats on Amodei’s funding panel, who voiced praise for Mullin and Venturella’s “openness” and willingness to discuss issues with Congress at that June 25 Appropriations oversight committee hearing.

“He’s still building confidence,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. “But I think people are getting more confident.”