‘Morally repugnant’
Four resign, calling family separations ‘morally repugnant’
Four members of a Homeland Security advisory council have resigned in protest over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
WASHINGTON — Four members of a Homeland Security advisory council have resigned in protest over the Trump administration’s immigration policies, citing the “morally repugnant” practice of separating immigrant families at the border.
Richard Danzig, former secretary of the Navy in the Clinton administration, and Elizabeth Holtzman, a Democratic former congresswoman, were among the group that announced their resignation in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
The group noted that the Department of Homeland Security did not consult its advisory council before implementing the policy, which separated more than 2,500 children until President Donald Trump reversed his endorsement of the practice amid an international outcry.
“Were we consulted, we would have observed that routinely taking children from migrant parents was morally repugnant, counterproductive and ill-considered,” the group wrote. “We cannot tolerate association with the immigration policies of this administration, nor the illusion that we are consulted on these matters.”
Worked under Obama
Two former Obama administration officials — David Martin, a former DHS deputy general counsel during the Obama administration, and Matthew Olsen, who served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center — also signed the letter.
Bill Bratton, a former New York City police commissioner who is vice chairman of the advisory council, thanked the group for their service.
“Each of you was appointed owing to lifelong dedication to the nation and her people, and, indeed, I can appreciate that each of you sees this resignation as part of that dedication,” Bratton wrote.
Advisory council members are appointed by the Homeland Security secretary to two-year terms. There are 24 members, according to the DHS website.
The Trump administration began routinely separating immigrant families who did not have authorization to enter the United States under a new policy that aimed to criminally prosecute all adults who entered the country illegally. To do so, DHS officials said, the administration was required to take away minor children because U.S. law prevents them from being held in adult jails. The agency is struggling to reunite the children with their parents, despite a court order to do so.
‘Making war on immigrants’
In separate letters also sent to Nielsen, Martin and Holtzman also cited objections more broadly to the administration’s immigration policies, including a travel ban on immigrants from several majority-Muslim countries, the pursuit of billions of dollars for a border wall and Trump’s attempts to end a deferred action program for younger immigrants who have lived in the country illegally since they were children.
“These actions have fueled polarization, alienated state and local governments, and moved us much further from a sustainable, effective, and strategically sensible immigration enforcement program,” Martin wrote.
Holtzman, who like Martin was appointed by former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson during the Obama administration, wrote to Nielsen that under Trump, “DHS has been transformed into an agency that is making war on immigrants and refugees.”