Tag: Trump Department of Homeland Security

Acting secretary blocked Stephen Miller’s bid for another DHS shake-up

An attempt by President Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller to engineer a new shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security was blocked this week by Kevin McAleenan, the department’s acting secretary, who said he might leave his post unless the situation improved and he was given more control over his agency, administration officials said.

The closed-door clash flared over the fate of Mark Morgan, the former FBI official the president has picked to be the new director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

With Morgan eager to move into the top job at ICE, Miller on Wednesday urged the president to have Morgan installed as the new commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) instead.

View the complete May 18 article by Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Republicans writing off hard-line DHS candidate

Senate Republicans are waving President Trump off from nominating Kris Kobach, a favorite among conservatives who want tougher enforcement of immigration laws, to serve as the next secretary of Homeland Security.

GOP lawmakers are already scrambling to contain the controversy surrounding two potential nominees to the Federal Reserve Board — Stephen Moore and Herman Cain — and they don’t want to find themselves in another political fight with the White House over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of Senate leadership on the Judiciary Committee, warned Wednesday that he could not stand behind Kobach if the former Kansas secretary of state is nominated to replace Kirstjen Nielsen as DHS chief.

View the complete April 11 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

IG: Trump administration took thousands more migrant children from parents

In this July 26, 2018, file photo, a migrant child holds the hand of a Lutheran Social Services worker helping to reunited children separated from their parents. Credit: Matt York, AP

The Trump administration separated thousands more migrant children from their parents at the U.S. border than has previously been made public, according to an investigative report released Thursday, but the federal tracking system has been so poor that the precise number is hazy.

According to the report issued by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, the separated children include 118 taken between July and early November — after the administration halted a short-lived family separation effort that provoked a political firestorm and public outrage.

The report estimates that thousands of other youngsters were taken starting early in the Trump administration, months before the government announced it would separate children in order to criminally prosecute their parents, through late last spring.

View the complete January 17 article by Amy Goldstein on The Washington Post website here.

Cybersecurity may suffer as shutdown persists

Members of the House Homeland Security panel, led by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., are concerned that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the DHS is running with significantly fewer staff. Credit: Bill Clark, CQ Roll Call file photo

Congress remains in the dark about how the spending stalemate has affected DHS’ anti-hacking mission

The partial government shutdown may be making some key federal departments and agencies running with skeletal staffs more vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches, experts said.

Meanwhile, the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security, said it remains in the dark about how the shutdown has affected the department’s mission to safeguard critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.

“With so many cyber activities reliant on highly skilled contractors required to augment government personnel, government shutdowns significantly degrade the ability of the government function to meet all of their cyber mission requirements,” said Greg Touhill, president of Cyxtera Federal, a company that provides cybersecurity services to the federal government.

DHS asks Pentagon to extend the military’s Mexico border deployment through at least January

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen speak with troops deployed to the Mexico border in Texas. Credit: Reuters

The Department of Homeland Security asked the Pentagon on Friday for a 45-day extension of the U.S. military presence at the Mexico border, a request that would stretch the deployment until at least the end of January.

The Defense Department is expected to agree to the extension in the coming days, well ahead of the mission’s current expiration date, which is Dec. 15. Pentagon officials have said some of the 6,000 active-duty personnel stationed along the border in Texas, Arizona and California would be brought home and replaced by other units.

President Trump ordered the deployment to preempt the arrival of thousands of Central American migrants traveling in caravan groups and seeking to enter the United States. His administration has characterized the migrants, who have concentrated along Mexico’s border with California, as a grave security threat.

View the complete November 30 article by Nick Miroff on the Washington Post website here.