Javad Khazaeli recalls the day workers came to his federal building in 2003 and switched all the signs to the brand-new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He was a young intelligence analyst, excited to be embedded with the special agents who did national security investigations under the newly minted Department of Homeland Security. ICE was a smaller agency then, mostly doing terrorism investigations and arresting three or four people per week, he said.
Today, the agency he knew is hardly recognizable.
Before President Donald Trump removed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on March 5, she led a 13-month transformation of the department, with White House backing, that's dented public support for the agency.
"It went from a national security agency to the president's personal Gestapo," said Khazaeli, who now practices immigration and civil rights law. Even with Noem out, he said, "I don't understand how this agency survives without a gutting of everyone who was hired and anyone who has been in a leadership position."
