Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday introduced new management on the company tasked with immigration enforcement as she additionally pledged to step up lie detector checks on workers to determine those that could also be leaking details about operations to the media.
“The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive and I plan to use every single one of them to make sure that we’re following the law, that we are following the procedures in place to keep people safe and that we’re making sure we’re following through on what President Trump has promised,” Noem advised CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Whereas these polygraph exams are sometimes not admissible in court docket proceedings, they’re continuously utilized by federal regulation enforcement businesses and for nationwide safety clearances.
“The Department of Homeland Security is a national security agency,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated in a press release. “We can, should, and will polygraph personnel.”
White Home officers have beforehand expressed frustration with the tempo of deportations, blaming it partially on current leaks revealing cities the place authorities deliberate to conduct operations.
Noem announcement of two new management appointments inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes lower than two months into the Trump administration and demonstrates the significance that the administration locations on finishing up the president’s deportation agenda.
Todd Lyons, the previous assistant director of subject operations for the company’s enforcement arm, will function performing ICE director. Madison Sheahan, secretary of the Louisiana Division of Wildlife and Fisheries and Noem’s former aide when she was governor of South Dakota, has been tapped to be the company’s deputy director.
The management modifications come after ICE’s performing director was reassigned on Feb. 21. Two different prime immigration enforcement officers have been reassigned Feb. 11. These staffing modifications got here amid frustrations within the Trump administration in regards to the tempo of immigration arrests.
Noem additionally introduced on Friday that the company has recognized and deliberate to prosecute two “leakers of information.”
On Sunday, she stated these two folks “were leaking our enforcement operations that we had planned and were going to conduct in several cities and exposed vulnerabilities.” She stated they may resist 10 years in federal jail.