Immigration officers in the agency's Enforcement and Removal Operations branch don't have that option - immigration enforcement is all ERO does - and instead are, in my estimation, thumbing their noses at their newly cleansed and liberated comrades, with the ERO head vowing not to "Be swayed by political theater or media rhetoric".
In 2018, 19 HSI special agents in charge sent an undated letter to then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, asking her "To restructure ICE into the two separate, independent entities of HSI and ERO".
The current acting ICE director was among the SACs who signed that letter, as "P.J. Lechleitner", but he did not - and could not - restructure the agency as he and the other SACs requested when he took acting command of the agency in June 2023, nor did he immediately initiate an HSI rebranding.
The plain implication is that HSI leadership and Lechleitner are hamming it up in said political theater and are kowtowing to those who denigrate immigration enforcement.
More limited operations involving the deportation of criminal aliens and of at least some of the million-plus aliens who've had their day in court but remain here under final orders of removal are likely at some point in the immediate future, and the only agency in the federal government that can execute such operations is ICE. That would mean that not only Bible's embattled officers but also Lechleitner's rebranded HSI agents would have to get their hands dirty doing the surveillance, arrests, detentions, and removals that the latter apparently believe to be below their station and dignity.
Trained agents are always in high demand, so if any or all of the ones in HSI don't like the "Immigration" part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they can easily go elsewhere, and should.
If ICE resources are so scarce, they should be expended on the agency's mission - deporting removable aliens, which a majority of Americans want - and not on "Political theater" like HSI rebranding.
https://cis.org/Arthur/ICE-ImmigrationEnforcement-Officers-Thumb-Noses-HSI-Rebrand
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