(José Niño, Headline USA) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil has raised speculation about federal law enforcement’s security priorities.
According to a report by Nettanel Slyomovics of Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “ICE has been preparing an operation to arrest pro-Palestinian activists.”
Moreover, Slyomovics contends that the “agency even reportedly paused its human trafficking and drug smuggling investigations to have agents monitor social media for posts and likes from pro-Palestinian students.”
When ICE suspected that the individuals they were monitoring were involved with foreign students, they sent over the findings to the State Department, which is how Khalil ultimately got arrested. This incident has raised questions if ICE is serious about pursuing the very mass deportations Donald Trump was elected to implement.
A Twitter user by the name of “12 Ball” shared a thread of cases where ICE was engaged in activity that goes well beyond its mission to protect America from cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety. Namely, the alleged facilitation of drug trafficking.
He alluded to the case of Operation Mayan Jaguar, an undercover operation conducted by ICE that involved the sale of a Gulfstream II turbojet to suspected drug smugglers in 2007. 12 Ball posted on Sept. 26, 2024, “ICE trafficked literal tons of coke into the US in CIA rendition planes as part of an “‘interagency’ collaboration ‘developed by the intelligence community.’
ICE “paused its human trafficking and drug smuggling investigations to have agents monitor social media for posts and likes from pro-Palestinian students” pic.twitter.com/2mFC3Wzser
— 12 Ball (@BoltzmannBooty) March 16, 2025
Concerns about ICE’s competence have come up now that early deportation figures point to a noticeable lack of mass deportations.
In Trump’s first month in office (January 2025), 37,660 people were deported, including both removals and returns. As for arrests made in the first 50 days of the Trump administration (January 20 to March 11, 2025), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 32,809 enforcement arrests. In February 2025, for example, the Trump administration arrested roughly 23,000 people but deported only about 18,000.
Trump’s current deportation rates are lower than those carried out during the preceding administration of Joe Biden, which averaged about 57,000 deportations on a monthly basis in 2024. For perspective, during Trump’s first term (2017-2020), his administration deported an average of 300,000 immigrants annually, which was lower than the Obama administration’s figures.
ICE’s lousy deportation figures have drawn criticism from former Florida State Representative and current Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini who declared on Saturday, “These deportations numbers are really bad…This needs to get fixed ASAP.“
These deportations numbers are really bad
This needs to get fixed ASAP
— Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) March 16, 2025
These concerns about ICE losing its focus are akin to FBI whistleblower Steve Friend’s revelations to Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan in 2022. Specifically, the FBI’s excessive focus on January 6 cases while deprioritizing child pornography cases.
“When I was moved over to from my child exploitation cases, the assistant special agent in charge even mentioned that he felt that child pornography was going to be a local issue and that domestic terrorism, specifically January 6th, was the higher priority,” Friend revealed at the time.
ICE’s lagging deportation numbers point to misplaced priorities on policing anti-Israel speech on university campuses as opposed to carrying out interior enforcement operations against the millions of illegal aliens residing in the United States.
U.S. federal law enforcement agencies appear to be veering off their original missions and are gradually losing credibility among voters who demand action against rampant crime and illegal immigration.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
