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President Donald Trump has for months urged his administration to reinstate large-scale separation of migrant families crossing the border, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of meetings at the White House.They are going to do something about it too:
Trump's outgoing Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, resisted — setting her at odds with the president.
According to two of the sources, Nielsen told Trump that federal court orders prohibited the Department of Homeland Security from reinstating the policy, and that he would be reversing his own executive order from June that ended family separations.
Three U.S. officials said that Kevin McAleenan, the head of Customs and Border Patrol who is expected to take over as acting DHS secretary, has not ruled out family separation as an option.
The policy McAleenan would consider, according to the officials, is known as “binary choice” and would give migrant parents the option between being separated from their children or bringing their children with them into long term detention.
Trump has been pushing this policy since January, the sources said, when the numbers of undocumented immigrants crossing the border began to rise.
A senior administration official said it seems Trump is convinced that family separation has been the most effective policy at deterring large numbers of asylum-seekers.
White House senior adviser Stephen Miller wants to make sure that outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is only the first of a string of senior officials headed out the door.
Trump administration officials say that Miller, who played key a role in Nielsen's ouster, also wants the President to dismiss the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Lee Cissna, and the department's general counsel, John Mitnick.They will keep firing people until they find a fascist who will get 'er done. I think it's pretty obvious that the CPB and ICE are champing at the bit to get hardcore. The military may be deployed as well.
A senior administration official also said that under the law, DHS Under Secretary of Management Claire Grady, the current acting deputy secretary, is next in line of succession to be acting secretary. That means there are questions as to whether she will need to be fired as well in order to make Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan the acting DHS secretary, as Trump tweeted Sunday night.
Miller's heightened influence within the West Wing has been aided by the President, who recently told aides in an Oval Office meeting that Miller was in charge of all immigration and border related issues in the White House, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
Miller has always informally been one of the leading hardliner voices on immigration in the West Wing. But this change formalizes that role and it also gives him the ability to call and chair meetings on immigration issues. This change was first reported by The Washington Post.
The sudden shift in personnel is indicative of the White House trying to redirect immigration policy following a surge of migrant apprehensions at the southern border in recent months.
The President has pushed in recent weeks to reinstate the family separation policy, which Nielsen resisted, a source familiar with the discussions says. Trump rescinded that policy amid public outrage and scrutiny from the courts last summer.
Additionally, after Trump walked back his threat to close the US-Mexico border and praised Mexico for doing more to stop the flow of immigrants, the President has since soured on his own walk back. By the end of the week, Trump became frustrated once again about the issues at the border, dissatisfied that Mexico was not doing enough and looking for his aides to take tougher steps to address the problem.
The changes have left the department in limbo, which has had at least three positions filled by people in an acting capacity in senior roles.
Late last week, the White House abruptly withdrew the nomination of Ron Vitiello for director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which caught both Congress and the department by surprise. Nielsen was unaware what was happening until after the nomination was pulled, a person familiar with the news said.
Asked about the mood at DHS following Nielsen's resignation, one DHS official told CNN there was "some exasperation," adding that the department doesn't "have enough depth" to fill longtime vacancies.
"We are losing leadership faster than we can get it confirmed or even hired permanently," the official said.