Eric Welsh was recently quoted in a detailed investigative report by The Guardian, “Court records reveal gutting of DHS oversight: ‘Incredibly dangerous,” exposing the Trump administration’s systematic dismantling of independent watchdog offices inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Without exception, these watchdog offices have been explicitly tasked by Congress to investigate civil rights abuses, deaths in detention, excessive use of force by federal immigration agents, and oversee other necessary checks and balances.
The article lays bare hundreds of pages of federal court filings revealing the dramatic reduction in oversight within the DHS since early 2025. According to The Guardian, the DHS’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) received nearly 6,000 complaints in less than nine months, yet has only directly investigated 3% of them. Under previous administrations, CRCL maintained a 20% investigation rate. Meanwhile, 32 people died in immigration custody in 2025, the deadliest year in over two decades. CRCL reviewed roughly 10 of those deaths and has, to this day, investigated only one.
Watchdog staffing numbers, or lack thereof, make this miscarriage in oversight both easier to understand and that much harder to dismiss as coincidence. When Trump returned for his second term in January 2025, CRCL employed 147 full-time staff. Similarly, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO), which reviews immediate detention-related problems, employed 118 employees. The Trump administration immediately had them designated as “internal adversaries” and ousted from office to make way for the new agenda. As of last month, fewer than 40 CRCL employees remain, including between 25 and 30 outside contractors. The OIDO office now only employs 5 people.
“The gutting of watchdog offices is incredibly dangerous,” Eric stresses to The Guardian. “When the executive removes themselves from oversight, there is an extremely large risk of misbehavior.”
Eric cautions that the DHS “is an agency that has demonstrated a willingness to exceed the boundaries of law – almost gleefully, almost gladly, willing to flout the law. By removing those guardrails, there is a real danger that this could be an incredibly corrupt government that is capable of doing anything it wants to.”
