Oliver Laughland
Demonstrators jam the international arrivals area at San Francisco International Airport. Photograph: UPI / Barcroft Images
The Trump administration replaced the acting director of US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement [Ice] just after firing the acting US
attorney general as
the backlash over the president’s controversial travel ban continues to grow.
Daniel Ragsdale, the acting Ice director who had
served under the Obama administration as the agency’s deputy director since
2012, was removed from the acting director role late on Monday night without
public explanation.
In a brief statement, Trump’s newly appointed homeland
security secretary John Kelly said Ragsdale would be replaced by Thomas Homan,
formerly the executive associate director of Ice’s enforcement and removal
operations [ERO] division. Homan has served in the agency since its creation in
2003, and in the ERO division, which oversees deportations, since 2009.
“I look forward to working alongside him to ensure that we enforce our
immigration laws in the interior of the United States consistent with the
national interest,” Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, said.
Last week the Trump administration vastly expanded the
powers of the agency, by broadening immigration enforcement priorities through
an executive order. Ice agents are now able to target almost any of
American’s 11 million undocumented migrants for deportation. Under the order, the agency can target undocumented
migrants convicted of minor crimes, those who have only been accused of crimes,
and those whom individual agency deem a threat to public safety or national
security.
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