Insiders are saying the Department of Homeland Security's ICE hiring is in "chaos" and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller is reportedly angry over "lagging" deportation numbers.
A DHS source told The Daily Beast on Monday that President Donald Trump's push to "throw money around" while "panic at the top of government” has unfolded with Miller's disappointment over agents not reaching Trump's goal of 3,000 deportations per day.
“There are calls with Miller, where everyone is being screamed at,” the official told The Beast. “The targets he is setting for them are ridiculous, and it is a case of them just spending any money they can to increase the number of officers and deportations.”
Hiring within the agency has also presented other problems — agents joining before badges, system access or guns are available. Some say the money offer is luring veteran agents back and "insiders claim that the crash program has led to disorder, with some veteran agents performing minimal work for substantial pay and ballooning costs."
Former executive-level leaders from HSI and Enforcement and Removal Operations have returned to the agency, "some of them taking home north of $250,000 for office-based shiftwork, per multiple sources who spoke to the Beast," the outlet reports.
Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, has claimed that many of the new agents would be law enforcement returnees.
However, according to several insiders, several former senior employees have returned to the federal pay scale.
"With locality pay in high-cost areas—such as parts of Texas, California, and New York—adding 35 percent or more to a basic salary, agents can earn up to $137,000 in the majority of the country. This rises to $171,268 in more expensive parts of the country, such as San Jose and San Francisco," The Beast reports.
Sources say that overtime pay has also added to the high paychecks, in addition to "ongoing federal pensions worth around $8,000–$9,000 a month, and some rehires can land well in excess of a quarter of a million annually."
My hope is that we win this passive aggressive, very poorly planned and executed war that's going exactly like you would expect it to go. Lots of harm to innocent people who don't deserve it, while the least deserving men hoard their profits and scream orders at their army to work harder and do the things they can't do on their own.
I hope due process survives, and the men who are shrieking these orders will be given a fair trial at home and abroad, despite refusing that right to others. I also hope they spend the rest of their miserable lives behind bars, and working off their debt to society in (unfortunately) more humane conditions than they deem fit for the innocent individuals they're kidnapping and detaining.
However, if we lose the war, at least we know there will be no due process for the men that helped destroy it. I think it's becoming pretty clear, that either way, we can probably look forward to the day their own army finally turns on Stephen Miller, and treats him to a good old fashioned Mussolini.*
The Metamorphoses of Mussolini’s Body