The First Couple of a Dysfunctional DHS

"The officials were under enormous pressure. Trump had recaptured the presidency amid a popular backlash against illegal immigration, and had promised a shock-and-awe program of mass deportations once he returned to power. Now DHS-conceived after 9/11 to protect the country from terrorist attacks-was being ordered to shift its focus and resources toward delivering on the president's campaign pledge."

"This project, already controversial and logistically fraught, was being complicated by Lewandowski-a menacing, omnipresent operator who had no experience in immigration enforcement, but who was nonetheless quickly consolidating power at the agency. The officials had gathered that night to map the ways his relationship with Noem could destabilize the department."

"The book, based on extensive reporting, depicts the Department of Homeland Security as a dysfunctional fiefdom in Trump's Washington empire-tasked with carrying out the most aggressive immigration crackdown in U.S. history even as the agency's internal culture is warped by the relationship between an ambitious, attention-thirsty secretary and her domineering right-hand man and alleged paramour."

Following Trump's return to office, the Department of Homeland Security faced pressure to execute a mass deportation program as a central campaign promise. However, internal dysfunction emerged from the relationship between DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her adviser Corey Lewandowski, who lacked immigration enforcement experience but rapidly accumulated power within the agency. Senior DHS officials held a six-hour secret meeting at a private Washington residence to discuss how this relationship threatened departmental stability. According to NBC News reporter Julia Ainsley's forthcoming book, the agency became a dysfunctional operation where Lewandowski influenced critical decisions including meeting participation and information flow, complicating the implementation of the government's most aggressive immigration enforcement initiative.

Read at The Atlantic