DHS corrects the record on mass deportations after Daily Wire report muddies waters

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is correcting a false report that the agency is shifting its immigration enforcement agenda to focus exclusively on arresting illegal aliens charged with or convicted of serious crimes.

The Daily Wire’s Jennie Taer reported Sept. 26 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been given new directives and were ordered to halt widespread immigration enforcement operations and instead focus their attention on illegal aliens accused or convicted of serious crimes. Taer said that she spoke to one ICE agent who said that the purported decision was political.

“They're trying to calm things down before the elections,” Taer said that she was told.

“Federal immigration agents may only arrest illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or charges for the time being,” she wrote, citing unnamed sources. “Those who have final deportation orders but lack criminal convictions or charges will not be arrested, they said.”

According to Taer, the White House feared that its stringent enforcement of federal immigration laws may hurt Republican candidates in November’s midterm elections.

DHS promptly responded to Taer’s report, clarifying that no change in policy had been made nor can one be expected.

“This is false. No one is off the table. We will continue to arrest any and all illegal aliens that come into our path,” the agency’s X account posted in response to the Daily Wire’s claims. “Anyone in our country illegally will be arrested and deported.”

There was reportedly some confusion stemming from ICE surges in “sanctuary” cities, where illegal aliens are shielded by state or local policies and state or local law enforcement are frequently barred from collaborating or cooperating with ICE.

“In an effort to protect American citizens, ICE has initiated a nationwide public safety surge in sanctuary cities where our brave officers will be targeting criminal illegal aliens — many released from jails by sanctuary politicians — including murderers, rapists, child predators, and gang members,” DHS said in an X post.

Bill Melugin of Fox News spoke with President Donald Trump and nine DHS and ICE officials and determined that the confusion was “some type of ‘miscommunication’ during conversations about prioritizing ‘worst first,’” adding that “there is no change in immigration enforcement policy.”

“President Trump tells me anyone in the country illegally remains ‘on the table’ for ICE arrest & deportation. I’m also told new guidance went out to ICE field offices tonight to reaffirm this and that yes, arrests of illegal aliens and ‘collaterals’ without additional criminal history will continue,” he said in an X post. “I’m not really sure what happened here — but everyone is on the same page, including President Trump, in telling me that his immigration enforcement agenda isn’t scaling back.”

Shortly after DHS debunked the Daily Wire’s report, documentary filmmaker JJ Carrell made a similar claim in an X post, suggesting that ICE agents have been directed only to arrest illegal aliens with criminal records, and that illegal aliens without criminal records could only be arrested if encountered in the company of illegal aliens with criminal records.

“This is my assessment: The Trump Administration and the Republicans are preparing the country for a mass amnesty!” he claimed.

“This is FALSE,” DHS said on X, in response to Carrell. “No one is off the table. We will continue to arrest any and all illegal aliens that come into our path.”

Melugin also spoke to multiple DHS and ICE sources and reported that none of them had even heard of Carrell’s supposed directive.

“I’m told this is ‘bullsh**’ and there is no directive to release illegal aliens if they don’t have a criminal history,” he said.

Despite the Daily Wire’s report, Border Czar and former ICE director Tom Homan said in a Sept. 26 interview that he is training approximately 1,000 new ICE agents in order to maximize arrests and deportations. He has also confirmed that nearly half of all illegal aliens arrested by ICE have no criminal record beyond illegally entering the U.S.

“Just over half of everybody we’re arresting is a criminal. So about half are noncriminals,” he said in July. “But bottom line is, everybody’s on the table.”