A heated dispute between two top US immigration officials over President Donald Trump's deportation agenda became so intense that aides were forced to 'clear the room', according to reports.
The argument broke out during a February 2025 meeting between Rodney Scott, Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Caleb Vitello, then acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Scott was pushing a 'master plan', approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, to establish a National Incident Command Centre that would coordinate resources from ICE, CBP and the Pentagon. The plan aimed to ramp up deportations to one million per year, allowing agents to enter the last known addresses of immigrants with removal orders without judicial warrants, and to accelerate deportation without appeal.
But Vitello objected, arguing that the addresses of some 700,000 people with removal orders had not been recently verified, raising the risk that US citizens could be wrongfully swept up. Frustrated, Scott pounded the table, and staffers quickly ended the meeting. Noem was informed, and within days Vitello was replaced by Todd Lyons as acting ICE director.
Although the incident command centre never materialised, parts of the plan were implemented. In May, Lyons authorised agents to detain individuals in their homes using warrants from ICE offices rather than judges. Vitello's warnings gained fresh significance after federal agents surged into Minneapolis in January, leading to the fatal shootings of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. A Marist poll the following month found nearly two-thirds of Americans believed ICE actions had gone too far. Trump later acknowledged a need for 'a little bit of a softer touch'.
In March, amid mounting criticism, Trump fired Noem as DHS chief, making her the first cabinet official ousted in his second term. Her top aide, Corey Lewandowski, departed soon after. To date, the administration has fallen short of its deportation goal, with Lyons telling lawmakers in April that 570,000 had been deported since Trump's inauguration.
The dispute is among several explosive arguments in the Trump administration. In April 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Elon Musk engaged in a fiery shouting match in the White House over the future of the IRS, which continued down the hall. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said disagreements were a normal part of a healthy policy process, noting that everyone serves at the pleasure of the president.
