"Deportations Will Continue." Believing the Midterms Ended Border Enforcement Is a Fantasy.
Democrats won the gavels. They did not win the executive power to shut down ICE. Homeland Security already said the quiet part out loud — and conservatives should keep the pressure on results, not retreat.
By Clara Hughes
The blue wave changed who chairs the committees. It did not change who runs Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Asked after Democrats took both chambers of Congress whether ICE would change tactics, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson quoted Secretary Markwayne Mullin in three words that should be taped above every conservative desk in Washington: "Deportations will continue." The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the exchange on Nov. 6. Just the News reported Mullin's social-media vow on Nov. 4: the same three words. That is not defiance for its own sake. It is a constitutional fact dressed as a slogan. The president still sets enforcement priorities. Federal immigration adjudication still sits inside the executive branch. And Congress has already appropriated nearly $240 billion for immigration purposes across 2025 and 2026 — "more than enough," Brookings scholar Gabriel Sanchez wrote before the election, for the administration to continue mass-deportation plans, the Inquirer noted. Conservatives who