DHS mouthpiece for Trump’s mass deportations is leaving administration

A prominent spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security and Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts is leaving the administration amid growing outrage over a violent surge of immigration officers in Minnesota, where federal agents fatally shot two people.

Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin is expected to leave the administration next week after informing colleagues about her plans Tuesday, The Independent has learned. Politico first reported news of her departure.

DHS did not immediately return a request for comment.

The agency’s prolific statements attributed to McLaughlin have aggressively defended the administration’s actions, including in the aftermath of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

McLaughlin initially sought to leave DHS in December but delayed her exit to support the administration in the wake of their deaths, The Independent has learned.

Her exit comes at a vulnerable moment for the administration, facing blowback and declining public support for the president’s sweeping efforts to quickly arrest and deport tens of thousands of people.

The Ohio native previously served as a communications aide to Vivek Ramaswamy during his 2024 presidential campaign. She also worked for then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and at the State Department during the first Trump administration.

But as an effective mouthpiece for the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, she rose to prominence as a prominent face for the sprawling federal agency that oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — drawing fire from Democratic opponents and critics while earning praise from the president himself.

Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, whose state endured a surge of federal officers last year, called her a “pathological liar.”

This is a developing story

Source: independent.co.uk