Attorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian break down the growing MAGA revolt against Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who's under fire from Trump's base even as DHS approaches its highest deportation total in over a decade, closing in on 1 million removals since January 2025 and on pace to beat President Obama's 2013 high of 436,000 in a single year. Brian and Shant tie the backlash to two recent ICE-involved deaths: Mario David Coronado Juárez, who crashed and died fleeing an attempted ICE traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan on September 20, and Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, a 28-year-old DoorDash driver shot by an ICE officer in Austin, Texas the same day. Mullin tried to scale back ICE's vehicle-stop practices in July after a string of fatal encounters, but Trump publicly overruled him and ordered the stops to continue — a decision Brian and Shant argue puts every fatality since squarely on the president, not Mullin. Brian and Shant detail the MAGA infighting driving Mullin's predicament: border czar Tom Homan and Steve Bannon blocked Mullin's pick to run ICE for lacking "experience," Mass Deportation Coalition leader Mike Howell says Mullin has given "true believers no hope" of hitting Trump's campaign-trail goal of a million deportations a year, and Mullin further enraged the base by publicly noting that 900,000 people have been naturalized as citizens since Trump took office. Brian and Shant also flag that DHS rushed thousands of new ICE hires through incomplete background checks, forcing the agency to quietly lay off officers who never should have been armed and deployed in the first place. Brian's bottom line: Mullin's critics aren't upset about the numbers, which are historic — they're upset there's no theatrical, made-for-TV cruelty to go with them, and that gap may cost him his job before the midterms.

Kabateck LLP: Call 1-844-74-CIVIL for a free case evaluation or visit us at https://www.kbklawyers.com/


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