DHS Shutdown Isn’t Impacting ICE Operations–So Who Is It Affecting?

Tricia McLaughlin is leaving her post as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at DHS. Secretary Kristi Noem confirms McLaughlin's departure today in a post on X. Noem says McLaughlin has served with exceptional dedication, tenacity, and professionalism. The DHS Secretary writes, quote, She has played an instrumental role in advancing our mission to secure the homeland and keep Americans safe. McLaughlin says that she has been planning to leave in December, but pushed back her departure amid the aftermath of the Rene Good and Alex Pretty shootings. Noem says her department is sad to see McLaughlin leave, grateful for her service, and wishes her success. To dive into the latest on this, we welcome on now Cooper Smith, Director of Homeland Security and Immigration at the America First Policy Institute. Cooper, thanks for joining us again. Now, Secretary Noem didn't provide any explanation on why McLaughlin was leaving. How are you reading her departure? Yeah, I mean, that, of course, is a question for Tricia and for the department. You know, I don't know personally. But look, she had an extremely successful first year during Trump's second term. You know, DHS has had historic numbers on both deportation and, of course, border crossings with eight months in a row of zero people being released illegally into the country, as was happening under Biden. You know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands per month. So I think she can, you know, retire sort of from DHS with a lot of dignity and honor. I think she did a great job in the role. But I, you know, can't speak to why she ultimately left. That'd be up to her and to the department. Well, we'll see what happens. And, you know, Congress has failed to come to an agreement to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Democrats won't support the funding without adding requirements for ICE policies. Before we get into the specifics of those policies, how is the lapse in funding affecting DHS and national security for everyday Americans? What's happening here is essentially the, you know, what we call the Abolish ICE Caucus or the Open Borders Caucus. You know, the left, the progressives in Congress are essentially holding the government hostage, as they have repeatedly throughout President Trump's second term. And so unfortunately, you know, our national security, our homeland security is at risk. I mean, DHS was talking about this over the last couple of days that, you know, if the shutdown continues, we can expect, Americans can expect longer wait lines potentially at the TSA. Of course, hundreds of thousands of DHS employees are going without pay. That affects employee morale. And unfortunately, FEMA, right, disaster-related grants and other funding mechanisms might get tied up or delayed. So there's very real costs to the DHS shutdown, which, as you mentioned, Jack, is all about, it's about ICE, right, this list of 10 demands for ICE changes. And I'm happy to talk about that. But in my view, it's a deeply unserious policy document. Sounds like it's written by a, you know, a very radical left, sort of Antifa-type person, not a senator or a congressman that we elect into office. So happy to dive into that. But there are real effects of a DHS shutdown. Yeah, and I want to get into that in just a second. But as far as the shutdown goes, how much longer can we go on like this before we see some notable and noticeable weaknesses in the TSA, FEMA, disaster response, and law enforcement programs? Yeah, I would expect if it goes past, let's say, a couple of weeks, maybe a month or so, you're going to start to see some real problems, right? The contracts being delayed, grants not going out. Of course, for those who rely upon their government salary, agents and officers at ICE and CBP, you know, maybe they can cover expenses for a couple of weeks, but not for a couple of months. So I would say as we get to the kind of five or six week mark, that is sort of what I'm looking at. Honestly, at this point, it's anybody's guess how long this is going to go. We just saw today that Democrats sent the White House sort of a new list of demands or a negotiation, an offer. And so all of this is happening in real time. But as I said in the prior segment, you know, there's very real costs, not just for the employees of DHS, but for our national security, and unfortunately for the American people. And Cooper, I want to get into the list of changes that Democrats are calling for. One of the most prominent ones is to ban ICE agents from wearing masks. Police departments across the country don't wear them. That's their argument. But Republicans say that it puts ICE agents and their families in danger, as ICE agents are being targeted more severely than your typical police officer. To what extent are ICE agents being targeted? Well, it's historic. It's unprecedented. According to the Department of Homeland Security, we're talking about an 8000% increase in death threats against ICE agents, a 1300% increase in doxing and harassment and assault, a huge rise in car related incidents across the country. So there's huge risks to being an ICE agent. And you're right. Most local police do not wear masks on the job. But the difference between local police and, say, ICE agents, is that ICE agents have had politicians calling them Nazis, the modern day Gestapo, for six, seven, eight, nine, ten years. And so unfortunately, in the eyes of many of the radical left, they see sort of a target in ICE. And I mean that to say that they're going out and not just doxing them and assaulting them and threatening them, but tracking them, tracking their movements. And there's entire groups dedicated to doing this work in a very professional way. This is not really a grassroots movement, more of a paid operation. So unfortunately, they face a lot of risks as ICE officers. And in my view, we have to protect them. We have to protect ICE's mission. And some of the other major changes that Democrats are calling for, and feel free to jump in on any of these, they're calling for a stricter use of force standards, clearer identification, judicial warrants for entering private property, and limits on what they call racial profiling. Can you tackle why Republicans are against some of these changes? Yeah, of course. I mean, I would say that there is one area in there, the body cameras, that there is some agreement. And of course, Kristi Noem announced, Secretary Noem announced that they'd be rolling that out in Minneapolis. ICE has actually looked at the body cameras and has been rolling them out for a number of years. So I don't think that's particularly controversial. But when it comes to requiring judicial warrants, when it comes to the masking, and all these other changes that are being asked of ICE, I would just submit to you and your audience that what they're trying to do is return ICE to what it was under Joe Biden, which was essentially doing very, very limited immigration enforcement to the point where it almost doesn't exist. I think they know that they can't politically run, I'm talking Democrat leadership, cannot politically run an abolish ICE platform. So instead, what they're doing is not being honest with the American people and proposing a list of 10 reforms that, if they were to agree upon it, would effectively render ICE meaningless, rudderless, and without any authority to go after the bad guys who came in under President Biden. I want to jump into what you said earlier about this not being such a grassroots movement on the part of protesters. Can you describe, President Trump has said so as well, as a lot of these protesters seem professional. Can you describe what's behind this? Sure, I think the Department of Justice is investigating this day in and day out, and I wholly support such an investigation. What we do know is that a lot of these protests, for example, we know that certain protesters go from city to city, right? They're not just located in Minnesota, or in Oregon, or in Illinois. They actually travel, and sometimes some evidence would suggest that they're paid to do so. Other evidence suggests that certain organizations, nonprofits, NGOs, are paying for rent for them, for medical issues, for legal issues that they might encounter. Basically, their full-time job is to protest ICE, and really, at the core, protests President Trump, right? And again, back to my point about the 10 demands, really what these activists want is they don't want immigration enforcement. They want people to come, they support open borders policies. At America First Policy Institute, we absolutely do not, but these people are, in some cases, I'm not gonna say all of them, in some cases, absolutely resourced to do this work, and it basically becomes their full-time job. Cooper Smith, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us, as always. Really appreciate it.