Kevin McAleenan Is Out as Acting Homeland Security Secretary
Source: NYT
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Maggie Haberman and Michael D. Shear
Oct. 11, 2019, 7:49 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON President Trump announced on Friday the departure of Kevin K. McAleenan, the acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security who spent his six-month tenure trying to curb a surge of asylum seekers at the southwestern border while managing a turbulent relationship with a president intent on restricting immigration.
Mr. McAleenans exit from the White House came after he tried publicly to embrace the president's increasingly aggressive assault on legal and illegal immigration even as he privately resisted some of Mr. Trumps most extreme ideas.
In an interview last week with The Washington Post, Mr. McAleenan complained about what he called the tone, the message, the public face and approach of immigration policy a not-so-subtle reproach of the presidents own language about the border.
The comments enraged some of the presidents staunch allies, who called it an unforgivable public statement about his boss.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/us/politics/kevin-mcaleenan-dhs.html
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)dalton99a
(81,475 posts)Why Trumps Fourth Secretary of Homeland Security Just Resigned
By Jonathan Blitzer
7:49 P.M.
When Kevin McAleenan became the acting Secretary of Homeland Security, in April, a D.H.S. official, who knew McAleenan personally, told me, Im not sure how he can finesse things with this Administration. Donald Trump had just fired Kirstjen Nielsen, a former official in the George W. Bush Administration, despite the fact that she had championed some of the Trump Administrations harshest immigration policies, including family separation. McAleenan, who had served in the Obama Administration, was widely regarded as a Democrat. He publicly opposed Trumps decision, earlier that spring, to cut aid to Central America, and was taking over the Department at a moment when more than a hundred thousand migrants were being apprehended at the border in a single month. On Friday, after six months in the post, McAleenan resigned, becoming one of the shortest-serving secretaries in the departments history. And yet, according to three people with knowledge of McAleenans thinking, the Secretary had somehow managed to leave the Trump Administration mostly on his own terms. The reasoning behind the decision, one of them told me, was sixty per cent because he had achieved the mission objectives, and forty per cent because he had to avoid being branded as Trumps border cop. ...
Trump never exactly soured on McAleenan, but he undercut him. For one thing, the President did not formally nominate McAleenan for Senate confirmation, which eroded his standing within the Administration. D.H.S. consists of twenty-two agencies, with an annual budget of fifty billion dollars and some two hundred and forty thousand employees, spanning the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Its portfolio includes briefs related to domestic terrorism, cybersecurity, and disaster relief. We always had to work extremely hard to make sure the department didnt get turned into a political tool, one former D.H.S. official told me last year. We tried to run it like other departments that were above the fray, but itll always be a challenge because of the immigration issue. Among many current and former D.H.S. officials, however, there was rising concern that the Presidents obsessive focus on immigration enforcement was dragging the department even further into the realm of domestic politics. At one point earlier this summer, Trump bumped into McAleenan in Washington just before the secretary was due to give a speech on cybersecurity. Why arent you at the border? Trump asked him, according to someone present at the time.
In June, Trump named two partisan appointees to key posts within D.H.S.Ken Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general, to lead Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Mark Morgan, to head C.B.P.both of whom routinely sidestepped McAleenan, their direct boss, in press conferences and appearances on Fox News. This summer, while McAleenan was negotiating an emergency funding bill on the Hillin part, by trying to convince restive Democrats that D.H.S. would use appropriations for humanitarian, not enforcement, effortsCuccinelli and Morgan publicly championed a nationwide ICE operation that the President had announced, to the agencys surprise, on Twitter. McAleenan had opposed the operation, which targeted immigrant families, but Cuccinelli and Morgan rallied to the cause. What I dont have control over is the tone, the message, the public face and approach of the department in an increasingly polarized time, McAleenan later told the Washington Post. Thats uncomfortable, as the accountable, senior figure.
...
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)one acting whatever after another.
hlthe2b
(102,237 posts)absorbing all the righteous disgust at his agency and the administration--and unlike the "true" Trumpies, still had the capacity to feel guilt and disgust.
In the immortal words of Rick Wilson: "everything Trump touches dies." Sorry, Mr. McAleenan. You are just the latest target.
dem4decades
(11,288 posts)ehrnst
(32,640 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,146 posts)The truth will get you fired
littlemissmartypants
(22,655 posts)The sliver of credibility he had left disintegrated the day he sat by as Mr. Prestidigitation presented his Sharpie weather map.
If I were his family, that he claims he wants to "spend more time with", I'd be too embarrassed to claim him.
sandensea
(21,627 posts)Danascot
(4,690 posts)House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said in a statement that McAleenan facilitated Trump's "anti-family and anti-immigrant agenda."
"The departure of the Acting Homeland Security Secretary is the latest sign of this Administrations failed leadership, which has worsened the humanitarian situation at the border, injected pain and tragedy into countless lives and done nothing to improve the situation at the border," she said.
"The Administrations barbaric family separation policy and the appalling conditions facing children and families at the border will leave a dark and enduring stain on our nation for years to come," she continued.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/kevin-mcaleenan-out-acting-homeland-security-chief-n1065331
mpcamb
(2,870 posts)Politicub
(12,165 posts)Appointed and elected officials should be loyal to the constitution and to the people and not only to the president.
Besides, what moron believes they can curry favor with Trump over more than a few months or less?
scarytomcat
(1,706 posts)for locking asylum seekers up and stealing kids from their parents
MissMillie
(38,555 posts)aren't they all "acting?"