MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
One of President Trump's top priorities is immigration and border security. As part of NPR's coverage of the administration's first 100 days, I spoke with someone who has a key role in U.S. border enforcement efforts, Tricia McLaughlin. She is the top spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs.
Madam Assistant Secretary, thank you so much for joining us once again.
TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN: Michel, thanks for having me on.
MARTIN: So let me just take a step back. How would you define philosophically the administration's approach in these first 100 days to immigration policy?
MCLAUGHLIN: I think we're doing exactly what the president promised that he would do. November 5, 2024, this is the mandate the American people gave him to do, which is to secure the border, secure the homeland.
MARTIN: The White House set some high targets for arrests and deportations at the beginning of this term, but it seems like it's been harder to meet those because so few people are crossing into the U.S. from the southern border. And in fact, that decrease in crossings had happened before the president took office. So how do you think you're doing on those metrics?
MCLAUGHLIN: I think that we've seen a lot of success at the border itself. We were just down in El Paso with Secretary Noem, and it was quiet. We really just saw our Border Patrol agents. We were not seeing migrants crossing. But as far as in the interior of our country, our ICE agents, they've really been hamstrung for the last four years, and in so many instances, vilified for simply doing their jobs in trying to get criminal illegal aliens off of our streets. And so what we're doing is a change in the culture this first hundred days. And we are seeing success, but we're going to see those numbers increase in the next hundred days.
MARTIN: So the president is using tools that previous presidents have not used in peacetime - declaring a national emergency at the southern border, invoking the Alien Enemies Act. Does the DHS believe that this Civil War-era act allows him to skip normal immigration court proceedings and due process?
MCLAUGHLIN: Absolutely not. We don't believe that this allows us to skip due process, nor are we skipping due process. We are abiding every day by due process that is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. The keyword is due. The Supreme Court has recognized that the amount of process that is due varies based on the situation. So whether that person is an illegal alien, a member of Tren de Aragua, a member of another terrorist organization, that process is going to look different.
MARTIN: But the issue is, and I think this is something that the president has talked about a lot, is that there have been a number of judges complaining about the administration's tactics, demanding more information, saying that the administration is being evasive in court proceedings. Is there an attempt to force a confrontation with the courts to define this authority and to define it in a more expansive fashion than has been interpreted in the past?
MCLAUGHLIN: We knew we were facing an uphill battle with these courts. We knew that there would be activist judges as we entered this administration, and that is why the president is giving the American people and the government, who is executing on the mandate of the American people, every tool at our disposal to get out the people who have illegally entered this country.
MARTIN: I don't know who you're calling activist judges because a number of the judges who have objected to the administration's tactics in court have been appointed by Republicans and in some cases by President Trump himself...
MCLAUGHLIN: Sure.
MARTIN: ...In his first term.
MCLAUGHLIN: I can point exactly who I'm talking about, if you'd like.
MARTIN: Well, let's not. No, we're not going to...
MCLAUGHLIN: I'll give you the example of the Wisconsin judge.
MARTIN: Forgive me.
MCLAUGHLIN: Sure.
MARTIN: I'm not trying to litigate each case here. That's not what we're here to do. What I'm asking you, philosophically, does the administration have a strategy of trying to force confrontations with these judges in order to expand the limits of its executive authority?
MCLAUGHLIN: Again, we are executing on the will of the American people, and we will use the tools at our disposal, including the Alien Enemies Act, which the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that we could use, and we will continue to use.
MARTIN: So the department has made some mistakes. So there is a U.S. citizen named Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, who was arrested by ICE in Florida. There is a U.S. citizen named Jose Hermosillo who was held in New Mexico for some days. There was an incident in Oklahoma, where our family had recently moved there from Maryland, who say they are U.S. citizens who had just moved into this house. Their home was raided. The agents, you know, ransacked the house in their telling, took their private property as evidence, they say. What is the administration doing to make sure that these mistakes don't continue to happen?
MCLAUGHLIN: I want to speak directly to that Oklahoma case. That was actually a large-scale operation, where we did interdict eight human traffickers. It was an ultimately successful operation. Unfortunately, the warrant that the court did give was for a house that the targets had moved out of two weeks prior. So that was not an ideal situation, obviously. We know that our ICE agents across the country are following proper protocol and proper procedures, and we will work every day to make ourselves excellent for the American people.
MARTIN: What I'm asking you is, when persons have been wrongly identified, as seems to have been the case here, and have been treated in a manner that is frightening to them, what redress do they have? Is the administration prepared to apologize to them? Are they offering them some compensation for this?
MCLAUGHLIN: Of course. We do internal investigations, and we make sure that these kind of things don't happen again. We are striving for excellence. We are striving to best serve the American people.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, let's look ahead. So now that the administration has put a lot of effort into its deportation efforts, what are the efforts going forward? Is there going to be an effort to achieve some sort of comprehensive immigration reform system? What can we look forward to in the next 100 days?
MCLAUGHLIN: Absolutely. I think that we're going to see an increase in interior operations. Many who are in Florida probably heard about Operation Tidal Wave, where we pulled almost a thousand criminal aliens, including MS-13 members, rapists, murderers convicted off of our streets. We're going to see more of our use of 287(g) authorities, which is deputizing state and local law enforcement to carry out immigration enforcement action. But I think we're also going to be looking more broadly at our legal immigration system in making sure we have increased vetting. We saw that there was a lot of exploitation, particularly CBP One, and other parole programs under the past administration. And that's something we're going to really look to fix so that we know who is in this country.
MARTIN: That is Tricia McLaughlin. She's assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Madam Assistant Secretary, thank you so much for joining us once again. I do hope we'll talk again.
MCLAUGHLIN: Thank you, Michel. You too.
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