I was questioning this when I read this article in the Washington Post.
It reads in part-
This kind of information sharing was part of a Trump administration strategy that is technically legal but which professional therapy associations say is a profound violation of patient confidentiality. To bolster its policy of stepped up enforcement, the administration is requiring that notes taken during mandatory therapy sessions with immigrant children be passed onto ICE, which can then use those reports against minors in court.
Now I don’t imagine that POTUS one day called his secretary and told them to notify ICE that all therapy session notes are now to be used in court cases. It is a detail he, most likely, never considered. But someone came up with this idea and they must know the inner workings of ICE.
This is just one example. We often read about changes to policy that the Executive branch has made that are not laws, which must be passed by Congress.
The White House staff must be working on this but who are they? I guess the POTUS is responsible for the policy as he approves it, but who is behind it? Who comes up with the detailed ideas?
While the question is in itself factual, I can’t see this staying in General Questions for any length of time without criticism of the administration (as already implied in the OP itself). This is better suited to Politics and Elections.
This is not to be snarky–certainly not in the first reply–but the answer is the entire Executive branch of the government. You can start with the Cabinet and workyour way down.
Other policy advising groups (or individuals) for the President such as the NSC and I have no idea how many others, may not be part of the trees leading to the Cabinet Secrataries but are governed in greater or lesser literal senses by the President himself.
Leo Bloom
Yes, but who gets an assignment from whom to work out what policy changes to make in each instance.
As in my example, did the POTOS ask for research into how the ICE conducts court cases? If not who did? And do they have on staff experts in immigration law? Does the executive branch reach out to experts in the government or in academia?
I really want to know how this works.
You can still get facts and names in P&E. But since the example you provided in the OP was itself critical of the administration I thought it best to move it to allow for such discussion.
…a distinction needs to be made between how it used to work under other administrations and how it works under the current administration.
At present information strongly suggest that at the heart of all policy decisions regarding immigration, the border, ICE, etc is noted white supremacist StephenMiller. As to how it works? Apparently Stephen Miller says “lets do this” and then people “go and do it.” ICE has an Acting Director. The Department of Homeland Security has an Acting Secretary. The normal chain of command isn’t what it used to be. We don’t really know how thing are working and I suspect it won’t be until this administration is out of office (if that happens) that we begin to find out what really happened.
The overall organization is the Executive Office of the President. If you were watching The West Wing, this is who Leo, Josh, Toby, Sam, CJ, and Donna worked for. These are the people in the White House that do the things the President wants done.
There are agencies that are part of the EOP that are supposed to create the policies that the administration wants carried out. Specifically, there’s the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, the National Security Council, the Office of American Innovation (this is a new agency created by Trump), and the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.
I agree, it’s probably Stephen Miller. I’m not sure how exactly it worked back in the days when had normal presidents.
ETA. In other areas it’s probably other names we’re familiar with. Jared Kushner seems to be in charge of policy for the Middle East. Don Jr. probably has other areas, etc.