In recent weeks, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has positioned himself as the unapologetic voice of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.
“Good morning, America. 
@DHSgov is revving up the deportation flights before the sun is even up,” he wrote on social media recently.
But nearly six months into his tenure, Mr. Mullin has struggled to overcome doubts about his leadership, particularly among hard-liners in President Trump’s base. Despite toughening his language on immigration — and he has increased arrests and detentions — many influential conservatives still see him as too soft on the issue. And the White House has broken with him on several significant issues, further undermining his standing.
Most recently, the White House withdrew the nomination of Mr. Mullin’s ally and senior adviser Lance Schroyer for ICE director, less than three months after Mr. Trump announced his selection. The White House pulled the nomination without explanation.
Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, had been frustrated with Mr. Mullin’s attempts to advocate for Mr. Schroyer’s nomination, according to two people familiar with the matter speaking on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Homan did not think Mr. Schroyer, who had no ICE experience, was qualified to lead the agency, the people said. Mr. Homan is known to back the current acting ICE head, David Venturella, who served for years in roles at the agency.
D.H.S. did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the White House.
Mark Morgan, who ran U.S. Customs and Border Protection for Mr. Trump during his first term, said Mr. Mullin’s support for Mr. Schroyer gave the impression he was choosing a friend rather than the person best qualified for the job. In addition to being from Mr. Mullin’s home state of Oklahoma, Mr. Schroyer was part of his security detail while Mr. Mullin served in the U.S. Senate.
“In politics, you can do that,” Mr. Morgan said of elevating friends and allies. “I think that’s part of the problem right now with this secretary, is that he’s running the job as if he was still a politician,” he added.
It’s not the first time Mr. Mullin has been overruled by the White House.
Earlier this year, ICE halted nearly all traffic stops following the shooting of a Colombian man by ICE officers in Maine. Shortly after the order went out internally, however, Mr. Trump sent a message on social media that the stops would continue. Mr. Trump was unhappy with Mr. Mullin for getting ahead of the White House on the traffic stop pause, according to a person familiar with the president’s thinking.
Mr. Mullin said in June that Haitians who recently lost deportation protections could stay in the country if they applied for legal status — a message that angered members of Mr. Trump’s base who expected them to be immediately and aggressively deported.
Mr. Mullin further alienated immigration hawks during an appearance at the National Governors Association conference in August.
He emphasized that nearly a million people had received U.S. citizenship during the Trump administration. He told governors he would stay out of their communities if ICE was given access to immigrants in their jails. And he appeared to express support for immigration reform.
After an onslaught of criticism from the right, Mr. Mullin tried to do damage control.
“NO amnesty for illegal aliens. Ever. We are a nation of laws,” he said on X. “If you are illegally present in the United States of America — you will be detained and deported. Period.”
Nick Sortor, a prominent pro-Trump influencer, was unconvinced.
“If you truly mean that, I’d probably refrain from signaling to illegals that ICE ‘won’t be seen’ in their cities as long as the ‘worst of the worst’ are turned over,” he responded on X. Mr. Sortor has more than 1.5 million followers on the site.
“Every time I look up, I see a new terrible answer or thought coming out of Mark Mullin’s mouth in this interview,” wrote Greg Bovino, the outspoken former Border Patrol official, in a social media post. Mr. Bovino ran major immigration enforcement operations under Mr. Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem.
The tensions are partially a function of the tough job of being the secretary of homeland security under Mr. Trump. The secretary must balance the president’s desire for a historic immigration crackdown with his demand for good press and polling numbers. The person works in tandem with two powerful figures in the White House — Mr. Homan and the senior adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner — who have the president’s ear.
And the task of following through on Mr. Trump’s pledge of “mass deportations” is, in many ways, set up for failure because of the complex realities of deportations, which require high levels of man-power, detention, planes and buses, and agreements with countries for quick removals.
Mr. Mullin’s particular challenge was to do all that while repairing the Homeland Security Department’s image. Under Ms. Noem, the agency’s fired former director, D.H.S. mounted an aggressive and widely unpopular immigration crackdown in Minnesota in which two U.S. citizens died at the hands of federal agents. Mr. Mullin pledged to keep a lower profile but his softer tone backfired with the base.
“He’s having to balance what he’s being directed to do from the White House, against a political backdrop, and the reality that they have not achieved mass deportations,” Mr. Morgan said. “It’s a really tough position.”
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