'A divide between MAGA': Immigration enforcement chaos fueling 'ongoing war' in key agency

The continued chaos of the Trump administration immigration enforcement operations has fueled a “war” within the Department of Homeland Security that is still fiercely “ongoing,” and one that journalist Michael Scherer described Friday as “a divide between institutional MAGA and disruptive MAGA.”

“For quite a while now, there've been two camps when it comes to how the deportations should proceed,” Scherer said Friday during an appearance on MS NOW. “The fight is very much still alive.”

Scrutiny over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations came to a head last weekend after the killing of Alex Pretti, a killing that has been described by critics as an “execution.”

In the days since, Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino was demoted, and Border Czar Tom Homan was deployed to Minneapolis, Minnesota to oversee immigration enforcement operations – a decision seen as a slight to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The fallout from Pretti’s killing, however, is “still ongoing inside [DHS],” Scherer said.

“Noem has taken her marching orders from [White House aid] Stephen Miller, who's been really driving the government to meet benchmarks – there's quotas for daily arrests, trying to get the log built quicker,” Scherer said.

“Homan and [Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney] Scott are people who came up through the bureaucracy; they're lifelong agents, there's a way of doing things, they're law enforcement officers. They actually understand that there are reasons for the paperwork, the rules and the caution you take in approaching these things.”

Whichever side wins out remains to be seen, but in the interim, calls have grown for the Trump administration to impose stricter guardrails around DHS’ immigration enforcement operations. Those calls have largely come from Democratic lawmakers, who have proposed that immigration enforcement agents be outfitted with body cameras and undergo more training.