Former ICE director says deporting 13 million ‘not going to happen'

Sarah Saldaña understands ICE from the inside. She once led the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under President Barack Obama.

As a former prosecutor and U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Saldaña believes in ICE and its mission. But she also believes there is no way the agency is equipped to arrest, detain and deport the 13 million people the Trump administration has pledged to remove.

“Put me on the record. I can predict that's not going to happen. Thirteen million people are not going to be removed from this country, certainly not under this, not in this year, not in the four years of this administration,” Saldaña said in an interview with NBC 5 Investigates.

Weeks into a new crackdown on illegal immigration, there have been few visible signs of increased ICE enforcement in Texas, the state with the second-largest undocumented population.

In Washington on Wednesday, there were reports of frustration with the pace of the crackdown and word of an ICE shake-up at the top.

NBC News reported that three administration sources said that the two top officials in charge of the ICE enforcement division had been reassigned. This comes after NBC News reported President Donald Trump is angry deportation numbers are not higher, although the president told reporters over the weekend that border officials are doing an incredible job.

Former ICE officials tell NBC 5 Investigates it's not surprising that ICE may struggle to meet the administration’s goal of deporting millions because ICE operations are incredibly labor-intensive.

“First, logistically, don't forget, we need to find these folks. They're not coming forward and saying, ‘Come get me,’” Saldaña said.

Photos ICE has posted on social media in recent weeks illustrate Saldaña’s point. They show teams of officers—not conducting mass arrests but instead working to locate migrants one at a time. Mostly, the agency said, people with a criminal history.

Saldaña said those operations require many officers to apprehend a single person safely.

“I would venture to say, based on my experience, that, let's say out of 10 operations that would occur on a given day, you might yield two to three immigrants who are not in the country under authorization,” said Saldaña.

The White House said ICE made about 8,000 arrests nationwide in the first two weeks of the administration. The largest single-day number of arrests was about 1,100.

Even if ICE could sustain that peak number every day for four years, it would total a little more than 1.5 million arrests—far short of 13 million.

“There's just a limited number of officers that ICE has to go out and arrest people,” said Paul Hunker, who served as chief legal counsel at ICE in Dallas, working closely on enforcement operations.

Hunker, who now practices immigration law in Dallas, said ICE will need a lot of help from other federal law enforcement agencies to increase arrests.

In the meantime, he believes ICE will continue to publicize images of arrests to give the public the impression that ICE is everywhere.

“The administration will do their shock-and-awe type of operations to try to send a signal that this is happening more broadly than it actually is happening, to scare people,” said Hunker.

In North Texas, ICE has so far released details of only a few arrests, including one man apprehended in Hillsboro who was wanted, ICE said, for a homicide in Mexico.

The agency also released photos of a man arrested in Fort Worth who ICE said was wanted for murder in Guatemala. Both are examples of what the agency called its "worst first" strategy, which prioritizes arrests of migrants with alleged criminal histories.

Last month, ICE said teams of officers fanned out across DFW and located 84 people in a one-day operation on a Sunday.

Store surveillance camera video obtained by NBC 5’s sister station, Telemundo 39, shows one of the arrests as agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) apprehended a man inside a taqueria and grocery store near Royal Lane and Dennis Road in Dallas.

ICE has declined to say whether the man had a criminal history, but the agency said some of the 84 migrants arrested that day were picked up at local jails, where they were already being held on other charges.

National research indicates that about seven in 10 people arrested by ICE are first taken into custody by other law enforcement agencies.

“It's a relatively safe and efficient way for ICE to assume custody of persons,” said Hunker, who added that an increased focus on jail arrests may be one way ICE will seek to boost arrest numbers.

NBC 5 Investigates reached out to both ICE and the White House to ask how they plan to increase the pace of arrests, but neither responded to questions.

Saldaña believes if arrest numbers don't increase as rapidly as the administration hopes, it may ultimately abandon the "worst first" strategy and begin targeting community locations like day labor sites.

“That is really a big concern of mine because that's not—that's not, again, a stretch to think that that might happen next if the numbers are not coming through. Let's get the low-hanging fruit,” said Saldaña.

She believes ICE should continue to focus its limited resources on migrants who pose a safety threat and not on undocumented people working and contributing to the community.

When asked why the agency should not seek to remove everyone who entered the country without authorization, Saldaña said budgetary limitations and human concerns complicate things.

“In a perfect, sanitized, uncomplicated world, which I think we can all agree is not the case, perhaps that that is true, but we're not,” Saldaña said.

She said the massive expense of arresting, holding, and deporting people means tough choices. And she said long-term solutions to the problem will only be found if Congress can agree on a new system that protects public safety without targeting millions.

“I can't believe that we're not willing to do the work and the thinking in order to arrive at some resolution. It's out there. It's out there,” said Saldaña.