Inside the heated clash over the DHS ‘master plan’ for deportations

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security immigration leaders disagreed so vehemently over how to accomplish President Donald Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people during his first year back in office that during a meeting over the issue, handlers had to “clear the room” to defuse tensions, two DHS officials familiar with the meeting told NBC News. 

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At the center of the disagreement were Caleb Vitello, then the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Scott and his top aides were pushing a plan that had been blessed by newly installed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

The “master plan” as they called it, called for creating a National Incident Command Center that would combine the powers of ICE and CBP, along with the Defense Department, to coordinate surging immigration enforcement operations in cities across the U.S. The details come in my new book out Tuesday, “Undue Process: The Inside Story of Trump’s Mass Deportation Program.”

The operations would target immigrants who were already under orders to leave the country, and federal agents would be instructed to enter their last known addresses without judicial warrants. Those captured would be fast-tracked for deportation without appeal, the DHS officials said. 

At the time, Homeland Security was far behind pace to reach 1 million in a year, and proponents of the plan thought this was the fastest path to get to Trump’s promised “shock and awe” goal. 

But Vitello disagreed, the officials said. He argued to Scott and his aides that the last known addresses of the 700,000 people with previous orders of removal hadn’t been verified recently. He said he worried that U.S. citizens could get wrongfully swept up in the surges if agents entered homes without warrants, which require law enforcement agencies to show evidence to judges to gain access.     

The early warnings from Vitello and the rift between DHS leaders would later be on public display as Homeland Security surged federal agents to cities around the U.S., sparking protests and feeding criticism that their policies had gone too far and encroached on civil liberties. The feud over how to achieve Trump’s agenda would only grow, and the fallout eventually included Noem herself and her closest adviser. 

In the February 2025 meeting over the plan, Scott grew tired of pushback from Vitello, the two officials said. He believed Vitello didn’t want to coordinate with CBP to boost deportations, they said. Scott slammed his hands on a table, visibly angry. Vitello refused to back down. With the two at an impasse, handlers for the senior leaders cleared the room and abruptly ended the meeting.  

Word soon got back to Noem, and within days, Vitello was reassigned to direct training for incoming ICE officers, the officials said. Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director who recently announced he will be leaving the agency, took his spot. Noem didn’t respond to a request for comment about the reassignment.

Officials with Homeland Security, ICE and CBP didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.

Although the National Incident Command Center didn’t permanently take hold, pieces of the plan did come to fruition. In mid-May, Lyons signed a document telling officers they can detain people “in their residences” based solely on administrative warrants from ICE field offices, rather than judges, if the residents have previous orders of removal, raising questions about violations of civil liberties.

By June, Border Patrol agents and ICE officers who were part of an immigration enforcement surge in Los Angeles began putting the deportation plans into action, and operations moved into other cities, drawing protests and complaints from local politicians.

After the fatal shootings of two American citizens during immigration operations in Minneapolis, however, Trump’s ratings on immigration began to tumble over the aggressive tactics and deportation goals, NBC News reported. Trump himself said the operations should be cooled off.   

“I learned that maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough,” Trump told NBC News’ Tom Llamas.    

The administration remains well short of its deportation goal of 1 million per year. At a hearing last month, Lyons said that since Trump returned to office, 570,000 people have been deported. 

Noem was ousted from her job in March, replaced by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who wants to portray a more humane side of immigration agents, another DHS official said. 

Mullin has put a pause on entering homes without judicial warrants. He has also paused Homeland Security’s plans to buy up warehouses for mass detention.