A panicked President Donald Trump phoned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to slam the brakes on a coast-to-coast surge of immigration raids after furious street protests erupted.

In late May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller set a quota for 3,000 immigration arrests per day, following through on the president’s campaign pledge to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation” in United States history. The effort sparked nationwide protests in June, starting in Los Angeles, where Trump dispatched 4,000 members of the National Guard to quell demonstrations over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Amid the fallout and slumping poll numbers, Trump called Noem—dubbed “ICE Barbie” for her love of dolling up for the cameras at immigration raids and in front of detained migrants, among other bizarre publicity stunts—to pump the brakes.

“He said: ‘We’re going to do this targeted,’” one former official who heard the mid-June call told Reuters, describing the president’s concern that indiscriminate arrests of farmhands and hotel maids were becoming a political nightmare. Details of Trump’s call to Noem have not been previously reported.