By Christine Fernando | Associated Press
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday announced new leadership at the agency tasked with immigration enforcement as she also pledged to step up lie detector tests on employees to identify those who may be leaking information about operations to the media.
“The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive and I plan to use every single one of them to make sure that we’re following the law, that we are following the procedures in place to keep people safe and that we’re making sure we’re following through on what President Trump has promised,” Noem told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
While these polygraph exams are typically not admissible in court proceedings, they are frequently used by federal law enforcement agencies and for national security clearances.
“The Department of Homeland Security is a national security agency,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “We can, should, and will polygraph personnel.”
White House officials have previously expressed frustration with the pace of deportations, blaming it in part on recent leaks revealing cities where authorities planned to conduct operations.
Noem announcement of two new leadership appointments within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes less than two months into the Trump administration and demonstrates the importance that the administration places on carrying out the president’s deportation agenda.
Todd Lyons, the former assistant director of field operations for the agency’s enforcement arm, will serve as acting ICE director. Madison Sheahan, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Noem’s former aide when she was governor of South Dakota, has been tapped to be the agency’s deputy director.
The leadership changes come after ICE’s acting director was reassigned on Feb. 21. Two other top immigration enforcement officials were reassigned Feb. 11. Those staffing changes came amid frustrations in the Trump administration about the pace of immigration arrests.
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Noem also announced on Friday that the agency has identified and planned to prosecute two “leakers of information.”
On Sunday, she said these two people “were leaking our enforcement operations that we had planned and were going to conduct in several cities and exposed vulnerabilities.” She said they could face up to 10 years in federal prison.
