Nick Miroff

Firing Kristi Noem was high on that list.

Restoring some of the, you know, oversight authorities.

Mullen said that he would do that.

So even in his confirmation hearing, like outside of the scope of the negotiations, they were already agreeing to a lot of the stuff on the Democrats list.

But what was what seems to be the big sticking point?

It's the masks.

I think that this is something that in the course of their recruitment effort to more than double the size of the ICE workforce and add more than 10,000 new deportation officers, that this is something that has been a promise to the new recruits.

Why?

Because they're worried about being doxxed and they're worried about their families being harassed.

And I'm sorry, but that's a real thing.

I'm watching the plan that was set in motion several months ago to overhaul the ICE detention system.

The agency has spent the last few months acquiring large warehouses around the country.

They've already spent a billion dollars to buy 11 properties.

They're planning to convert them into large mass detention centers with capacity for, in some places, for up to 10,000 detainees.

I mean, this is stuff we've just never seen in this country before.

They have $38 billion to convert these facilities and to operate them through the rest of Trump's term.

These are central to their plan to carry out mass deportations and to reach their goal of a million deportations a year, which they fell far short of in Trump's first year.

And yet, Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, as they were acquiring these warehouses and implementing this plan, didn't do any of the local political work it would need to reassure jurisdictions, even in Republican-dominated jurisdictions,

to reassure local residents about what they were doing.

And so they have been facing this backlash to the ICE plan from people who, you know, voted for Trump but don't necessarily want a 5,000-person ICE detention center in their county.