In late May, President Donald Trump grew alarmed as nationwide protests erupted in response to a surge of immigration raids initiated under his administration’s directive. The White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, had set an aggressive target of 3,000 immigration arrests per day, aiming to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise of executing the “largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history. The backlash peaked in June when protests broke out in Los Angeles, prompting Trump to deploy 4,000 National Guard troops to quell the unrest, despite opposition from California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Amid declining poll numbers and growing political fallout, Trump personally called Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—nicknamed “ICE Barbie” for her flamboyant public appearances during immigration raids—to halt the broad crackdown. According to a former official familiar with the June conversation, the president instructed Noem to “do this targeted,” expressing concern that indiscriminate arrests of vulnerable workers like farmhands and hotel maids were causing a political nightmare. This previously unreported phone call marked a rare moment of friction in the Trump-Miller alliance.
Following Trump’s directive, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quickly froze operations at farms, restaurants, and meat-packing plants, with Senior ICE official Tatum King ordering field offices to ease up. However, this pause lasted only a few days before Miller and Noem rescinded the order, throwing agents and immigrant advocates alike into uncertainty about what would come next.
Miller’s relentless push to crack down on undocumented immigrants is well-known within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to the point where one staffer was tasked with managing Miller’s frequent, intense calls to senior officials. Despite Trump’s temporary backtrack, the administration has doubled overall immigration arrests, imposed travel bans on 19 countries, and allocated a massive $170 billion toward immigration enforcement through the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July.
Legal challenges have emerged in response to the aggressive raids. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, appointed by former President Joe Biden, issued two emergency restraining orders barring ICE and Border Patrol from conducting “suspicion-less” stops in Los Angeles County and ensuring detainees immediate access to lawyers. The case, brought by the ACLU and other immigrant rights groups, alleges that masked federal agents have terrorized Latino neighborhoods, leading to more than 2,700 arrests since early June. Several cities and Los Angeles County have joined the lawsuit, calling the raids politically motivated attempts to intimidate Democratic strongholds.
A White House official told Reuters there was “no daylight between Miller and Trump,” asserting that Miller’s strategy did not prioritize farms as targets and that the initial pause in raids was not authorized by top leadership. Still, the conflicting directives reveal tensions within the administration over immigration enforcement tactics.
As protests, legal battles, and political pressure mount, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown remains a contentious and unfolding saga. The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and DHS for comment.
