Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem's shambolic ICE tour

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Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem’s shambolic ICE tour
Miller and Noem try to sell Trump’s troop takeover — but even Fox News is no safe space

By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published October 8, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) President Donald Trump has made it clear from the start that he wants to run the largest deportation operation in the country’s history, pushing for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain at least 3,000 migrants a day with a goal of a million deportations a year. What’s become more obvious since he federalized the National Guard in Los Angeles during the summer, against the wishes of California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, is that the plan for mass deportations is also meant to provoke a response to justify harsh crackdowns on Trump’s political foes — and now his people are admitting as much.

Texas National Guard troops entered Chicago on Tuesday, over the objections of Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker. Meanwhile, Trump signaled he may soon invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active-duty military to states that are defying federal law. The threat is a show of force meant to shore up a flailing president, whose heavy-handed tactics in rounding up undocumented immigrants — and in some cases, legal residents and even U.S. citizens — appear to have contributed to his slipping poll numbers on immigration.

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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said in 2024 there would be “war on our hands” if former President Joe Biden federalized national guard troops, kicked off her swing in Chicago with an awkward pit stop on Friday at a municipal building for a bathroom break. But the doors were slammed shut in her face. “Absolutely shameful,” Noem complained afterward on X and Fox News. Since the entire tour is a content operation, the embarrassing moment was caught on camera.

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Speaking with CNN’s Boris Sanchez, Miller made clear there is a more dangerously authoritarian motivation to centralize power. When asked about his claim that rulings preventing the deployment of state National Guard troops to relatively small protests near the Portland ICE facility amounted to a “legal insurrection,” Miller said Trump had “plenary authority,” meaning absolute power without limitations or restrictions on the issue, before suddenly freezing in front of the camera.

“Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit,” Miller told Sanchez. “I would note the administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard under Title 10 of the US Code… the president has plenary authority…” ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/10/08/stephen-miller-and-kristi-noems-shambolic-ice-tour/