White House attorneys have denied that the Department of Homeland Security gave ICE agents specific targets for immigrant arrests, despite previous statements from senior advisor Stephen Miller.
In a court filing last week, reported by The Guardian, lawyers said that although an advisor may have made the remarks, that “no such goal has been set as a matter of policy, and no such directive has been issued to or by DHS or ICE.”
Miller told Fox News in June that agents had been set a target of a “minimum” of 3,000 arrests a day, as well as reportedly advising officials to target community hubs, Home Depot parking lots and 7-Eleven convenience stores to find suspects, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A report in Axios also detailed a “tense” meeting attended by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Miller in late May, in which they told senior ICE agents to supercharge arrests in order to hit the 3,000 target.
“DHS has confirmed that neither ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters, or any other operational activities that ICE or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law,” the court filing read.
“[The] allegation that the government maintains a policy mandating 3,000 arrests per day appears to originate from media reports quoting a White House advisor who described that figure as a “goal” that the Administration was ‘looking to set.’
“That quotation may have been accurate, but no such goal has been set as a matter of policy, and no such directive has been issued to or by DHS or ICE.”
The filing added that, while enforcement of federal immigration law was “top priority for DHS, ICE, and the Administration,” that all government enforcement activities were based on “individualized assessments, available resources, and evolving operational priorities – not volume metrics.”
Despite this claim, the WSJ previously reported that Miller had asked top ICE officials in June if they believed it was possible to reach one million deportations by the end of the year, citing people with knowledge of the meeting.
To achieve this, he told law enforcement to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” the outlet reported.
However, such a hardline stance has been defended previously by the Trump administration, including Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan.
Last month Homan said that although public safety threats were a priority, those who were in the country illegally were “not off the table,” in regards to deportation. “We’re gonna enforce immigration law,” he said.
The Independent has reached out to the White House and Department for Homeland Security for comment.
