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natalie kitroeff

From “The New York Times“, I’m Natalie Kitroeff. This is “The Daily.”

archived recording 1 What is he being pulled over for? archived recording 2 [GROANS]: [BANGING] archived recording 1 There’s a child! Look what they’re doing. He’s seizing! [SCREAMING] archived recording 3 He’s having a seizure. They’re trying to rip the baby out of her hands. archived recording 1 He’s having a seizure. My God! archived recording 4 They got my boy with a baby in the back. He wasn’t doing absolutely nothing, bro. archived recording 5 You’re OK, mama? You’re OK? archived recording 6 You’re OK, mama.

natalie kitroeff

As the Trump administration ramps up its crackdown on illegal immigration, it’s turned to one agency and one man officials believe can help them dramatically increase deportations, Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino.

greg bovino Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders.

natalie kitroeff

He’s the law enforcement figure who’s now at the center of the most aggressive raids and tactics being employed in American cities.

archived recording 7 Why are your officers asking me where I’m from? I thought you guys are doing targeted arrests.

natalie kitroeff

Today, my colleague Hamed Aleaziz speaks to Bovino and explains why his militaristic approach may be here to stay. It’s Wednesday, November 12. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hamed, we’re now almost 10 months into the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. And over the course of that period, you’ve come on show at several points. And you’ve told us that despite all of the videos that we’re seeing of these ICE raids and these arrests and these very aggressive enforcement tactics, the administration is actually frustrated internally with the pace, the slow pace, they see, of deportations. And you’ve been reporting recently on the changes that they are making to try to address that. So let’s start there. Walk me through that.

hamed aleaziz

Yeah, the Trump administration, when they came in, they promised mass deportations. And as part of that, there was this massive push earlier this year to arrest 3,000 people a day. That was the goal. And ICE has gotten nowhere near that goal. Across the country, typically, ICE, on a weekday, is averaging around 1,300 arrests. And because of the inability to get these numbers, there have been constant changes at ICE, and not just recently, but throughout the year. They’ve replaced their director. They’ve replaced multiple senior officials. And a couple of weeks ago, they got rid of almost half of the senior leaders across the country.

natalie kitroeff

Just to drill down here for a second, what is it that the administration is actually taking issue with? What are these leaders doing wrong, according to the administration?

hamed aleaziz

I think one of the main issues here is that the way ICE has historically conducted immigration enforcement is really time intensive. What ICE does is they spend a long time surveilling a single individual. They send out several people to go arrest that person. Sometimes that person’s not there. So there’s so many resources, there’s so much time just to get a small number of people. And right now, the administration and DHS and ICE is running into really a inherent issue with the way ICE does its work.

natalie kitroeff

It sounds like you’re saying they see ICE as actually too methodical, which, honestly, is hard to square with the images that we’ve seen of these agents tackling people, slamming people to the ground, breaking families up. But then again, we did talk to you a couple months ago about an ICE raid that you and one of our producers went on. And that was this big day-long raid where they only detained three people.

hamed aleaziz

Yeah, I mean, there have been countless videos. You see ICE smashing windows to get people. We’ve seen officer-involved shootings involving ICE. There are these really dramatic videos of ICE conducting immigration sweeps in the country. But for ICE, that’s the type of drama that they want to avoid. Typically, what they want to do is they want to secure the scene. They want to get in and out. And they take a lot of pride in conducting their immigration enforcement in this manner. But of course, to pull off a smooth raid, it takes time and planning. And the agents have to be meticulous in the lead-up. And as far as the administration is concerned, time is something that ICE just doesn’t have. So they’ve looked to another agency, and that’s Border Patrol. Border Patrol typically operates near the Southern border. They are in charge of stopping people who cross into the country illegally. And they’re more willing to be in your face, to be more militaristic in many ways. And they’re very aggressive in their approach. And they’ve been really behind some of the videos that have gone viral, including people being chased at Home Depots, raids on apartment buildings, people being arrested at car washes. These are Border Patrol, not ICE. And now the administration wants them to do more and to be really at the forefront of immigration enforcement in the United States.