By REBECCA SANTANA
WASHINGTON (AP) — The agency tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is undergoing a major staff reorganization.
In a news release Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced leadership changes at the department tasked with finding, arresting and removing immigrants who no longer have the right to be in the country as well as at the agency’s investigative division.
Kenneth Genalo, who had been the acting director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, is retiring and will serve as a special government employee with ICE. Robert Hammer, who has been the acting head of Homeland Security Investigations, will transition to another leadership role at headquarters.
The agency said Marcos Charles will become the new acting head of ERO while Derek Gordon will be the acting head at HSI. ICE also announced a host of other staff changes at various departments within the agency.
ICE said the changes would “help ICE achieve President Trump and the American people’s mandate of arresting and deporting criminal illegal aliens and making American communities safe.”
The news comes after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News earlier this week that the administration was setting a goal of 3,000 arrests by ICE each day and that the number could go higher.
“President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day,” said Miller.
Three thousand arrests per day would mark a huge increase in daily arrests from current figures. Between Jan. 20 and May 19 the agency arrested 78,155 people, which translates to an average of 656 arrests per day.
This is the latest staff shakeup at an agency that is central to Trump’s vision of removing everyone in the country illegally. In February, the acting director of ICE was reassigned as well as two other top ICE officials.
Carrying out deportations, especially in high numbers, poses logistical challenges.
There are a limited number of enforcement and removal officers — those tasked with tracking down, arresting and removing people in the country illegally — and the number of officers has remained stagnant for years. ICE also has a limited number of detention beds to hold people once arrested and a limited number of planes to remove them from the country.
But the administration is pushing for a major funding boost as part of a package in Congress that could supercharge immigration enforcement. The plan would aim to fund the removal of 1 million immigrants annually and house 100,000 people in detention centers. The plan also calls for 10,000 more ICE officers and investigators.
This story has been corrected to reflect that the news release about the announcement of the staff reorganization at Immigration and Customs Enforcement was issued on Thursday, not Tuesday.
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