DHS turns on border chief over $2 million office renovation plan
Source: Politico
01/16/2026 07:25 PM EST
Infighting in the Department of Homeland Security — as the agency reels from a deadly confrontation with an American citizen — has gotten so bad that its leadership has turned on one of its own commissioners, ostensibly over $137,000 in front office upgrades.
Top brass at the $115 billion department said the request was too expensive and unnecessary since U.S. Customs and Border Protection will move its headquarters in the coming years, according to three administration officials. The officials also harped on what they said were superfluous elements like sprucing up wellness rooms, pricey new furniture and window treatments, they said.
The redecoration row engulfing the relationships between Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott and his DHS higher-ups is over much more than just new office chairs. As President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement team has struggled to meet the president’s aggressive goals around restricting immigration, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has pushed a division previously focused on securing the border to take a more active role in the detention and removal of unauthorized immigrants from the United States.
That has focused attention on the DHS division, which is a linchpin not only of Trump’s mass-deportation agenda but efforts to build the border wall and collect tariff revenue. Scott’s renovation budget has become a concern of the department’s top political leadership, who also said that Scott is not delivering results at the speed that they want, according to the three officials. “Don’t waste our time with silly things like this when we have other priorities we want to focus on,” said one of the officials. “The last thing that should be in mind is making your office fancier.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/16/dhs-border-chief-office-renovation-00735316
= new reply since forum marked as read
(it is actually, along with what I read was going to be 500 miles of brand new floating barriers along the Rio Grande. Waste. Fraud. Abuse.
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the mandatory (scowling) portrait of his highness. 
