DHS mothballs three agencies which appeared to undermine administration's mass deportation efforts

WASHINGTON, DC - The Anchorage Daily News reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is shuttering three internal “watchdog” agencies within DHS that investigated complaints and advocated for immigrants, referring to the watchdogs as “roadblocks” to immigration enforcement, a department spokesperson said last week. 

DHS spokesperson Tricial McLaughlin said the agency implemented a “reduction in force” for the three agencies–the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman—in essence eliminating all three. She said the three offices “have obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining DHS’s mission.” 

The agencies had about 300 employees, a small percentage of the total number of workers at DHS, which is estimated at 260,000. Their task was to handle complaints about the immigration system from illegal aliens who shouldn’t have been in the country to begin with. 

Those complaints centered around detention conditions, care of migrant children, and delays in processing green-card and citizenship applications, the Anchorage Daily News said. Reports from the three agencies were used by House and Senate oversight committees, while also providing information to illegal aliens facing deportation in U.S. immigration courts who were not otherwise entitled to public defenders. 

One office– the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties– extended to more than 20 agencies under the DHS umbrella, and investigated responses to natural disasters, cyberthreats, and terrorism, which are more likely to cause issues for U.S. citizens. 

The dismantling of these agencies comes as the Trump administration continues to fulfill a campaign promise of engaging in the largest mass deportation effort in history. Unfortunately, those efforts have been hamstrung by activist federal district judges who some accuse of overstepping their authority. 

“It’s a big blow,” claims John Roth, who served as DHS inspector general from 2014 until 2017, when he retired during the first year of President Trump’s first term. “They are the first line of defense when it comes to oversight.” 

As expected, current and former employees expect legal challenges to the decision. McLaughlin states employees will be terminated within 60 days if they don’t find other assignments within the DHS. 

“DHS remains committed to civil rights protections, but must streamline oversight to remove roadblocks to enforcement,” McLaughlin said. “These reductions ensure taxpayer dollars support the Department’s core mission: border security and immigration enforcement.

“Rather than supporting law enforcement efforts, they often function as internal adversaries that slow down operations.

As expected, Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee slammed the move, claiming in a tweet that the administration is “eliminating another office that could expose their illegal and unconstitutional actions.” 

In a breakdown of the three agencies, the largest office, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, has over 150 staff members operating under a $46 million budget. 

The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, with over 120 employees, claims to be a “neutral” entity that investigated 11,000 complaints in 2023, completed 22 inspections, and issued 11 reports. The department had a hand in erecting billboards that seemed to encourage illegal aliens, including one that read, “Your brother in immigration custody has rights. We’re here to help.” That would seem to counter the administration’s efforts to stem illegal entry into the country, a mission of DHS. 

Finally, the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman said its 45 workers were on track to handle an unsurprising record 30,000 requests for help in FY-2024. Some claimed their green card applications or work permits were “wrongly” rejected because of typos, while some were “desperate” to reunite with relatives. 

About 25 percent of the requests came from people seeking to bring in relatives from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela on immigration parole, a program the Trump administration mothballed.