A panicked President Donald Trump phoned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to slam the brakes on a coast-to-coast surge of immigration raids after furious street protests erupted.
In late May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller set a quota for 3,000 immigration arrests per day, following through on the president’s campaign pledge to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation” in United States history. The effort sparked nationwide protests in June, starting in Los Angeles, where Trump dispatched 4,000 members of the National Guard to quell demonstrations over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Amid the fallout and slumping poll numbers, Trump called Noem—dubbed “ICE Barbie” for her love of dolling up for the cameras at immigration raids and in front of detained migrants, among other bizarre publicity stunts—to pump the brakes.
“He said: ‘We’re going to do this targeted,’” one former official who heard the mid-June call told Reuters, describing the president’s concern that indiscriminate arrests of farmhands and hotel maids were becoming a political nightmare. Details of Trump’s call to Noem have not been previously reported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quietly froze operations at farms, restaurants, and meat-packing plants within hours of the call, with Senior ICE official Tatum King telling field offices to ease up.
But the stand-down lasted only days before Miller and Noem rescinded the order, leaving agents—and activists—scrambling to work out what came next, according to Reuters.
The episode exposed a rare crack in the previously iron-clad alliance between Trump and Miller, Reuters reported.
Miller’s obsessive drive to purge the country of undocumented immigrants has become so notorious inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that officials assigned one unlucky staffer to field his constant calls to spare senior figures the daily tongue-lashings, a former colleague told Reuters.

Ultimately, Trump’s flip-flopping did little to water down Miller’s crackdown. The administration has doubled overall arrests, slapped bans on travelers from 19 countries, and earmarked a staggering $170 billion for immigration enforcement under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July.
The effort is also facing pushback from the courts. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, granted two emergency restraining orders Thursday—one to bar ICE and Border Patrol from “suspicion-less” street and workplace stops across Los Angeles County and another to guarantee detainees immediate access to lawyers.
The case—brought by the ACLU and other advocates on behalf of immigrants and two U.S. citizens who were allegedly held despite showing ID—argues that masked agents have terrorized Latino neighborhoods, making 2,700 arrests since June 6.

Frimpong blasted the government’s “very general” declarations and said she expects to issue a final order Friday.
Eight cities and L.A. County have moved to join the suit, calling the raids a political stunt aimed at blue enclaves.
Reuters reported a White House official saying there was “no daylight between Miller and Trump, and Miller’s approach to immigration enforcement had not made farms a primary target.”

They added that “the initial ICE directive pausing raids had not been authorized by top administration leaders.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and DHS for comment.