The man comes in behind Kristi Noem who spent money on new airplanes, hundreds of vehicles for ICE, migrant detention warehouses and tailored suits for Secret Service agents…
Markwayne Mullin has the Trump/Miller policies to follow….
Judges and Courts to follow….
And deal with Congress that has its own idea’s about rules and money….
But MORE important?
He’s to begin running a department that has had a boss that that seemed to just want look good for the camera’s…
And cared less about the departments employee’s….
‘
In Markwayne Mullin’s first week as secretary, employees with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were informed that top-level department approval is now needed only for contracts valued at $25 million and above. It was not clear if the new policy applied to the entire Department of Homeland Security or only to ICE.
A DHS spokesperson said that the agency is “reviewing our internal policies” and that there were “no new internal policies to announce at this time.”
The previous policy, established under Noem, prompted bipartisan criticism from department officials and lawmakers who said it delayed the approval of grants and contracts for vital tasks like emergency preparedness and anti-terrorism activities. They said it also contributed to a slowdown in getting help to communities recovering from natural disasters.
Mullin, who was confirmed this week, is taking over DHS at a time when the agency has been partially shut down for more than a month and the American public has increasingly soured on the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. President Donald Trump removed Noem from her role in early March, after she was pressed during a Senate hearing on a $200 million ad campaign that she starred in last year.
Mullin is a Trump loyalist who is expected to continue carrying out the administration’s hard-line immigration measures. But he indicated during his confirmation hearing that he would rescind the $100,000 review policy, telling senators he was “not a micromanager.” And in his first days as secretary, there have been some changes.
ICE has slowed down the process of issuing contracts to turn several warehouses into large-scale immigrant holding centers, according to an internal memo sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post….
…
Noem’s contract review policy disproportionately hindered FEMA, which awards massive contracts and funds disaster aid projects that frequently exceed $100,000. Several current and former FEMA officials said that they expected the $100,000 review process to be rescinded soon but had not seen official confirmation.
Seven employees across FEMA said there has been more movement on contracts in recent weeks. Two officials said that contracts under $10 million have been getting approved at the agency level now.
One senior official said it would be “a great move” to lose the cumbersome review process because of all the chaos and frustration it has caused.
At his confirmation hearing, Mullin said he did not believe that rescinding Noem’s policy would compromise the integrity of the contract approval process.
“We’re also going to be very responsible for the taxpayer dollars,” he said. “But it’s unrealistic to some degree, adding so much red tape.”….
…
DHS confirms that Lewandowski left the department along with Noem
Corey Lewandowski, the Trump 2016 campaign manager who served as an unpaid adviser to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for the past year, is no longer working at DHS, the department said Friday.
A statement confirmed his departure from DHS but did not specify any future government role for Lewandowski, who was photographed with Noem this week in Guyana during an official visit she made to the South American country….
…
Controversy swirled around Lewandowski’s role at DHS during Noem’s stormy tenure leading the department at the forefront of the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement operations.
Lewandowski started working as political adviser to Noem while she was South Dakota governor and lobbied President Donald Trump to name her DHS chief. He played an outsize role at the department once she joined the Cabinet.
Lewandowski came into the Trump administration as a “special government employee,” raising questions about how he was counting his days at the agency. U.S. law limits temporary government employees to 130 days per year of unpaid work, but Lewandowski has worked at DHS since the start of Noem’s tenure in February 2025….
…
Noem earlier this month refused to answer questions from House Democrats about her relationship with Lewandowski amid media reports that the two have had an affair.
Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016, was widely credited with the tactical decisions that led to the president’s win in the New Hampshire primary that year. His star faded after he was accused of grabbing a female reporter by the arm at a campaign event…..
Biden knocked on his border enforcement by a Democrat out loud….
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) on Sunday said immigration policy could have been “more secure” during the Biden administration while weighing in on lawmakers’ current impasse on reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“The Biden administration did not do immigration enforcement the way it should have. We should have [had] the border more secure than it was,” Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox News Sunday.”
“But there’s plenty of room between that policy, between the radical-left policy you keep talking about, you know, open borders and all that. And having, you know, masked unidentified ICE agents show up. No probable cause,” he added….
More…
Interesting from a House Democrat, eh?
If the Senate Democrats do NOT hold on?…We COULD be having more ICE agents shooting people instead of hanging out at airports doing much of nothing
I have no problem with the remarks by Rep. Smith.
Biden DOES get a ‘D’ I agree.,…
He simply misjudged the immigration issue
Sending Harris to South America also to beg countries to help out fell flat….
And in the end?
Abbott sealed his fate on the issue with the migrant exports to Blue states
Deaths in ICE Custody Are Growing. ‘They Let Him Rot in There.’
The Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which have been leading the deportation effort, have faced growing scrutiny over agents’ aggressive, militarized tactics on American streets. And the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota this year helped lead to the ouster of Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary.
But as her successor, Markwayne Mullin, takes over, the number of people who have died in immigration detention has been drawing more attention. The number of immigrants in ICE custody has nearly doubled in the last 14 months, and the detention centers have been strained by the surge….
More…