You work for Trump, you're going to be humiliated

Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Trump berated her on Wednesday in front of the entire cabinet for what he said was her failure to adequately secure the nation’s borders, according to several current and former officials familiar with the episode.

Ms. Nielsen, who is a protégée of John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has drafted a resignation letter but has not submitted it, according to two of the people. As the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Ms. Nielsen is in charge of the 20,000 employees who work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Trump’s anger toward Ms. Nielsen, who was sitting several seats to his left at the meeting, was part of a lengthy tirade in which the president railed at his cabinet about what he said was its lack of progress toward sealing the country’s borders against illegal immigrants, according to one person who was present at the meeting.
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Mr. Trump’s anger about immigration has grown in recent weeks, according to several officials. He repeatedly claimed credit for the fact that during his first year in office, illegal border crossings dropped to their lowest levels in decades. But this year, they have risen again, robbing him of one of his favorite talking points.

In remarks to reporters before Wednesday’s meeting, Mr. Trump hinted at the anger that would cause him to erupt once TV cameras were led out of the room.

“We’ve very much toughened up the border, but the laws are horrible,” Mr. Trump said. “The laws in this country for immigration and illegal immigration are absolutely horrible. And we have to do something about it — not only the wall, which we’re building sections of wall right now.”

One person familiar with Mr. Trump’s blowup at the meeting said it was prompted by a discussion about why Mexico was not doing more to prevent illegal border crossings into the United States. Another person said the president was primarily focused on the Homeland Security Department because he viewed Ms. Nielsen as primarily responsible for keeping illegal immigrants out of the country.

During the meeting, Mr. Trump yelled about the United States’ porous border and said more needed to be done to fix it. When members of his cabinet pointed out that the country relies on day laborers who cross the border each day, Mr. Trump said that was fine, but continued to complain, one person said.

The president also complained about the continued failure of his administration to find a way to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, two people familiar with the episode said.

Ms. Nielsen viewed the president’s rant as directed mostly at her, and she told associates after the meeting that she should not continue in the job if he did not view her as effective. One person close to Ms. Nielsen said she was miserable in her job.

Mr. Trump has clashed with Ms. Nielsen for weeks about his belief that more should be done to secure the border. In early April, the president repeatedly expressed frustration with Ms. Nielsen that her department was not doing enough to close loopholes that were allowing illegal immigrants into the country, according to one official familiar with those discussions.

During those discussions, officials had presented Mr. Trump with a list of proposals that would help border agents crack down on those trying to cross the border illegally and send them back more quickly. The president urged Ms. Nielsen to be more aggressive, the official said.

One persistent issue has been Mr. Trump’s belief that Ms. Nielsen and other officials in the department were resisting his direction that parents be separated from their children when families cross illegally into the United States, several officials said. The president and his aides in the White House had been pushing a family separation policy for weeks as a way of deterring families from trying to cross the border illegally.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has been increasingly focused on the obstacles to immigration changes, even in public speeches where he had planned to talk about other topics.

“We don’t have laws. We have laws that were written by people that truly could not love our country,” the president told members of the National Rifle Association last week in Dallas during lengthy remarks about immigration.

“We’re going to start defending our country. We’re going to start defending our borders,” he said with the same enthusiasm that he demonstrated when he talked about immigration during his campaign.