The emerging blame game over the Trump administration's handling of the deadly shooting by border authorities in Minneapolis this week has exposed the internal jockeying for power within the homeland security department over President Trump's expansive federal immigration crackdown, and left the department in what current and former officials say is a severe crisis.
In the days since federal agents fatally shot a Veterans Affairs nurse, a bellicose Border Patrol agent leading the operation in the city was cast aside. The embattled homeland security secretary scrambled to get face time with Trump amid calls to step down. And a top White House official who designed Trump's immigration agenda said the administration was examining whether border agents had violated protocol.
The situation has engulfed the department in turmoil and prompted widespread concern among the rank and file and members of Congress over the future of an agency tasked with protecting the US from threats at home and abroad. Current and former homeland security officials have already described a growing sense of frustration and disillusionment at the agency, leading Trump’s push to arrest and deport millions of immigrants.
"It appears to be chaos," Deborah Fleischaker, who was the assistant director for policy for ICE during the Biden administration, said of the leadership of the homeland security department. “Immigration has been politicised for a long time. But what we’re seeing is such an escalation of that and such an embrace of power as the ultimate tool.”
“The morale inside the department has got to be suffering,” she added. “It’s got to be hurting. They see what’s happening.”
None of the top immigration officials appeared at imminent risk of losing their jobs. After Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, met with Trump for nearly two hours this week, he said she had done a "very good job". And Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff who has played an outsize role in shaping and directing the immigration crackdown, remains one of the administration’s more influential figures.
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief whose tactics in immigration operations in American cities have garnered lawsuits and protests, was pulled out of Minneapolis. But White House officials maintained he was not at risk of losing his position. The White House has directed Tom Homan, the President's border czar, to replace Bovino in Minnesota and meet with local authorities to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis, in Trump’s words.
And amid all the finger-pointing and pushing to overcome the political fallout of the shooting, neither Trump nor any of his advisers has explained why they falsely said the man the agents killed, Alex Pretti, had been brandishing a gun before he was shot, or why administration officials labelled him as a domestic terrorist before any investigation.
The aggressive tactics and false statements have mirrored a top-down combative approach set by Trump, in which the administration immediately attacks its opponents with inflammatory language, even if it is undercut by video evidence later.
A White House spokeswoman referred to comments this week by Trump, in which he indicated he was open to an investigation into the shooting.
New York Times News Service
