Kristi Noem faucets new ICE leaders, strikes to determine leakers

Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday introduced new management on the company tasked with immigration enforcement as she additionally pledged to step up lie detector assessments on workers to determine those that could also be leaking details about operations to the media.

“The authorities that I’ve beneath the Division of Homeland Safety are broad and intensive and I plan to make use of each single one in all them to be sure that we’re following the regulation, that we’re following the procedures in place to maintain folks protected and that we’re ensuring we’re following by means of on what President Trump has promised,” Noem informed CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Whereas these polygraph exams are sometimes not admissible in courtroom proceedings, they’re steadily utilized by federal regulation enforcement businesses and for nationwide safety clearances.

“The Division of Homeland Safety is a nationwide safety company,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated in a press release. “We are able to, ought to, and can polygraph personnel.”

White Home officers have beforehand expressed frustration with the tempo of deportations, blaming it partly on latest leaks revealing cities the place authorities deliberate to conduct operations.

Noem announcement of two new management appointments throughout the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes lower than two months into the Trump administration and demonstrates the significance that the administration locations on finishing up the president’s deportation agenda.

Todd Lyons, the previous assistant director of discipline operations for the company’s enforcement arm, will function appearing ICE director. Madison Sheahan, secretary of the Louisiana Division of Wildlife and Fisheries and Noem’s former aide when she was governor of South Dakota, has been tapped to be the company’s deputy director.

The management modifications come after ICE’s appearing director was reassigned on Feb. 21. Two different high immigration enforcement officers have been reassigned Feb. 11. These staffing modifications got here amid frustrations within the Trump administration concerning the tempo of immigration arrests.

Noem additionally introduced on Friday that the company has recognized and deliberate to prosecute two “leakers of data.”

On Sunday, she stated these two folks “have been leaking our enforcement operations that we had deliberate and have been going to conduct in a number of cities and uncovered vulnerabilities.” She stated they may withstand 10 years in federal jail.