Scoop: Stephen Miller, Noem tell ICE to supercharge immigrant arrests

• The increased pressure on agents comes as border-crossing numbers have plummeted in Trump's first four months. It signals an increasingly aggressive approach to making arrests in non-border communities nationwide.
• It also comes as the Trump administration's heavy-handed tactics in rounding up unauthorized immigrants — and in some cases, legal residents and even U.S. citizens — appear to have contributed to President Trump's slipping poll numbers on immigration.

Zoom in: Miller, the White House's deputy chief of staff and leading architect of President Trump's immigration policy, laid into top immigration officials during the May 21 meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in D.C., according to four people familiar with the meeting.

• Miller demanded that field office directors and special agents in charge get arrest and deportation numbers up as much as possible, pointing to the waves of unauthorized immigrants who were able to enter the U.S. during the Biden administration.

Noem took a milder approach in pushing for more arrests, soliciting feedback from ICE leaders. Special government employee Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign aide, also spoke.

• Miller's directive and tone had people leaving the meeting feeling their jobs could be in jeopardy if the new targets aren't reached, two of the sources said. A third person said Miller was trying to motivate people with a harsh tone.
• It's not the first time Miller has yelled at senior DHS officials about getting arrest and deportation numbers up, sources said.

Zoom out: Immigration officers have almost 49,000 people in ICE custody, according to the latest government data from early May. That's significantly more people in detention than what Congress has appropriated funding to accommodate.

• But even as the Trump administration has carried out a series of controversial deportation flights to other nations, deportation totals are roughly the same as they were during President Biden's last year in office.
• Border-area deportations are lower because fewer migrants are attempting to cross into the U.S., while ICE's removals from the country's interior have increased, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an independent organization.

To help ramp up deportations, Capitol Hill Republicans are working on providing an extra $147 billion in immigration funds over the next 10 years — part of the Trump-backed "big beautiful bill" that passed the House last week.

• In the meantime, DHS and ICE have begun posting official requests for additional staffing, bed space and resources.
• ICE also has signed agreements to open up limited, additional bed space at existing detention spaces across the country.
• Such efforts to add space at a New Jersey detention center recently led to protests that resulted in the arrest of Rep. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), sparking outrage among Democrats.

What they're saying: "Keeping President Trump's promise to deport illegal aliens is something the administration takes seriously," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

• "We are committed to aggressively and efficiently removing illegal aliens from the United States, and ensuring our law enforcement officers have the resources necessary to do so. The safety of the American people depends upon it."

The big picture: Immigration advocates have warned that if ICE gets more money and resources, more Americans and legal immigrants will be wrongfully detained and possibly deported.

• Trump and Vice President Vance have made clear they want to run the largest deportation operation in the country's history, with a goal of a million deportations a year.