STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): The union that represents ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers, the same national ICE council that endorsed President -- Donald Trump in the 2016 election, but now that group is upset that the Trump administration has been so slow to reverse the policies of the Obama years. A post on their website saying, quote, “While officers view the President's position on enforcement as courageous, the Trump administration has left all of the Obama managers and leadership in place ... tensions are on the rise between Trump's army of Obama holdovers.” Here to react, we've got former ICE agent and Border Patrol officer David Ward, joins us today as you can see from channel 35, Fox 35 in Orlando. David, good morning to you. 



DAVID WARD: Good morning. 

DOOCY: So, a number of ICE officials have said they feel like the president has betrayed them because so many people are leftovers from the Obama administration and nothing is changing. 



WARD: I don't think President Obama has betrayed anyone at this point. But what we do have is --

DOOCY: President Trump. 



WARD: I'm sorry, President Trump. But what we do have is a period of time from January until April where we had an increase of 37 percent in our apprehensions over last year because we did have Trump and [John] Kelly in charge of the Department of Homeland Security and immigration enforcement. But since Mr. Kelly went over to the White House, and now that we have an open borders Department of Homeland Security secretary, we're back at square one again, as we did with the past eight years. 

DOOCY: So are you referring to Kirstjen Nielsen at the Department of Homeland Security? I know that she did not have, going into the job, any -- much, if any, immigration or border patrol experience. She also supported Jeb Bush, didn't support President Trump and she's made comments that she's against the wall. 

WARD: Well, this is going to affect their agents out in the field, and if she imposes a policy that we had in the previous eight years, you're going to see a mass exodus of Border Patrol agents and ICE agents leaving the agency because they are hired to do a job that Congress mandated. And we have these politicians, particularly these attorneys, taking over these agencies and not allowing these guys to do their jobs by imposing these policies that they just create out of thin air that don't even exist like DACA. That was just a policy that was created by Obama that was not part of law. 

DOOCY: David, I understand you're also concerned or leery, perhaps, of the man who's been nominated by President Trump as director of ICE, Thomas Holman. What are your concerns about him? 



WARD: Well, again, he worked for the Obama administration as the director of Enforcement and Operations Removal department and, of course, you know how that went with the removal of aliens. Now, this is not to say that Mr. Holman won't do his job, he was following orders from the Obama administration and perhaps this time around -- and he has come out and said he's strong on enforcement. So I'm encouraged by his opinion on that part. But again, we're looking at a new Department of Homeland Security secretary that is very similar to Jeh Johnson and his opinions. 

DOOCY: David, in listening to you the last couple of minutes, it sounds like you and many of the -- of your former colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security had high hopes, but now there doesn't seem to be much swamp-draining because a lot of the people from the previous administration are going to have jobs in the new one. 

WARD: Well, obviously the Obama administration sycophants are still within the administration. They haven't been weeded out. The swamp has not been drained, and it's going to take a while to do it. And a lot of those folks are going to try and blockade Mr. Trump's immigration decisions. And now with this Homeland Security secretary, I'm very dubious on what's going to happen with the Department of Homeland Security. 

DOOCY: Well, we're all concerned. Let's see what happens.

Previously

How Trump helps Fox & Friends set the media agenda

Fox & Friends tells Trump how to use the Department of Justice to prosecute his perceived enemies

In reporting on DACA, outlets are uncritically lifting up anti-immigrant hate and nativist groups

Study: Fox News covered immigration five times as much as CNN and MSNBC combined