WASHINGTON — The top official in charge of carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportations agenda has been reassigned amid concerns that the deportation effort isn’t moving fast enough.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Friday that Caleb Vitello, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was “no longer in an administrative role, but is instead overseeing all field and enforcement operations: finding, arresting, and deporting illegal aliens, which is a major priority of the President and Secretary (Kristi) Noem.”
The statement made no mention of why Vitello, a career ICE official with more than two decades on the job, was reassigned or who his replacement will be. But White House officials have expressed frustration with the pace of deportations of people in the country illegally.
The decision comes a little over one month into the new administration, showing how important immigration and carrying out mass deportations are to the Trump administration.
ICE — specifically, its Enforcement and Removal Operations arm — is the key agency tasked with carrying out the Republican president’s pledge of mass deportations of people in the country illegally during his second term.
Last week Tom Homan, the White House border czar tasked with carrying out Trump’s immigration agenda across the federal government, said arrests inside the U.S. — as opposed to people arrested as they’re crossing the border — are about three times higher than they were this time last year, under President Joe Biden. But he said it still wasn’t enough.
“I’m not satisfied,” Homan said. “We got to get more.”
At the time, Homan also said he had talked to ICE leadership about the number of people who had been released from immigration custody. From now on, he said, no one would be released without ICE leadership signing off.
“The number of releases was unacceptable,” Homan said, “and that’s been fixed.”
Homan spoke the same day that two top immigration enforcement officials were reassigned.
Vitello is a career ICE official, who most recently was the assistant director for firearms and tactical programs before being tapped as the acting director.
He’s also served on the National Security Council and held positions at ICE directly related to the agency’s enforcement operations.
ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed leader in years.
