A confusing nationwide directive appeared to tell ICE officers to stop arresting illegal aliens unless they had a separate criminal conviction or pending charge.
President Trump has now made the administration’s position unmistakable: ICE agents still have full authority to arrest and deport anyone who is in the country illegally.
The controversy began when immigration reporter Jennie Taer disclosed what agents had been told over the weekend:
The Daily Wire reported that officers across the country were instructed to limit arrests to illegal immigrants with criminal convictions or charges. According to the report, the guidance also would have stopped so-called collateral arrests, meaning agents who encountered other illegal aliens during an operation could detain only the original target.
The report said the change would even shield people with final deportation orders if they did not also have a criminal conviction or pending charge.
Officers interviewed by the outlet warned that the restriction would drive arrest totals down and sharply limit what enforcement teams could do in the field.
One source also questioned whether President Trump had been told before the guidance circulated. That concern became central once the president was contacted directly and the administration clarified its policy.
Agents were understandably stunned. Enforcing immigration law is already dangerous work.
Sending contradictory instructions from Washington makes that job harder and risks turning lawful enforcement into a guessing game.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin then went directly to the top. He spoke with President Trump and nine sources inside ICE and the Department of Homeland Security before laying out what happened:
Fox News reports that verbal guidance telling field offices to prioritize the “worst first” did go out nationwide and alarmed agents who received it. Sources later described the order as the product of a miscommunication during internal discussions about prioritizing serious offenders, not a formal retreat from the administration’s immigration policy.
President Trump told the outlet that ICE may still arrest and deport anyone who is in the country illegally. That includes collateral arrests made when agents encounter additional illegal aliens while pursuing another target.
New guidance was sent to ICE field offices Saturday evening to make clear that the administration’s enforcement policy had not changed.
DHS issued its own blunt public correction and left no room for the watered-down interpretation:
Prioritizing murderers, rapists, gang members and other dangerous criminals is common sense. Pretending that everyone else who violated our immigration laws suddenly becomes untouchable is not.
The American people voted for border enforcement and mass deportations, not a quiet return to the catch-and-release mindset that created this disaster in the first place.
President Trump stepped in, the policy was reaffirmed, and agents received corrected guidance. That is the right outcome.
But the episode also exposed a serious problem inside the chain of command. A verbal directive capable of reshaping arrests nationwide should never reach field offices in language so muddled that agents believe the mission has changed overnight.
ICE officers deserve clear orders. Americans deserve an administration that carries out the immigration mandate they voted for without bureaucratic backsliding.
For now, the message is back where it belongs: no illegal alien is automatically off the table.
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[ H/T WLT Report ]
