Acting DHS chief touts immigration successes
The acting chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security traveled to Phoenix on Thursday to meet with over three dozen local, state and federal police agencies, and to tout the Trump administration’s record on border security and immigration with less than two weeks before Election Day.
Chad Wolf, the department’s acting secretary, played up the administration’s successes over the past four years, including the scheduled completion of nearly 400 miles of new border wall system along the U.S.-Mexico border before the end of 2020, a massive overhaul restricting access to asylum in the United States, and the expedited removal of migrants from the country.
In addition to its reputation as ground zero in the immigration debate, Arizona this year has become a crucial presidential battleground state. President Donald Trump, who has visited the state six times so far this year, trails Democratic rival Joe
Biden in polling in Arizona and around the country.
During a 30-minute speech from Phoenix, Wolf warned of dire consequences of repealing the Trump policies as voters continue to cast their early ballots for the upcoming Nov. 3 presidential election.
“Reversing course is no way forward. Decriminalizing illegal entry, stopping the deportation of criminal aliens, resuming ‘catch and release,’ returning to a broken asylum system, dismantling the wall, walking away from landmark international agreements, and putting foreign workers first in line for American jobs is not the way to secure the homeland,” Wolf said. “These are not just bad policies, they are dangerous.”
Wolf made no mention during his speech of the more controversial aspects of the Trump administration’s border and immigration policies, such as the practice of family separation that generated a public outcry.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued DHS for removing migrant children from their parents at the border in attempts to discourage illegal crossings, said this week that they had been unable to locate the parents of 545 minors separated as far back as 2017.
Arizona critics of the Trump administration’s border and immigration policies criticized Wolf ’s visit to Phoenix on Thursday, as well as his role in implementing many of the Trump policies.
“It’s pathetic to see Wolf making a fool of himself shilling for Trump,” Laiken Jordahl, a field campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in an emailed statement.
The group is affiliated with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which sued the Trump administration over border wall construction efforts, including waiving numerous environmental and cultural laws to expedite construction on protected federal lands along the border.
“This guy is responsible for blowing up Indigenous sacred sites, butchering ancient saguaro cacti and bulldozing protected public lands across Arizona for Trump’s vanity wall,” Jordahl added. “He’s ripped thousands of refugee children from their parents’ arms. Wolf ’s heartless cruelty has no place in Arizona. He’s not welcome here.”
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who presides over the Arizona Sheriff ’s Association, said the group invited Wolf to visit Arizona during one of their frequent calls. Wolf accepted about two weeks ago, Dannels said.
Following his remarks on immigration and the border, Wolf held an hourlong roundtable discussion with top law enforcement leaders in the state, including Dannels; Heston Silbert, the director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety; and Roy Villareal, the chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, among others.
During their discussion, Dannels said the heads of various local law enforcement agencies highlighted the close cooperation with the federal government, which he said served as a model for other states.
But they also acknowledged concerns about the future of what that partnership might look like if Trump loses his reelection bid, Dannels added. Trump has aligned himself closely with law enforcement, especially amid ongoing turmoil over racial inequality and policing.
Dannels, who was appointed to the department’s Homeland Security Advisory Council in 2018, said he feels more valued under the Trump administration than during his first four years as Cochise County sheriff under then-President Barack Obama.
“This administration has been very open to working with sheriffs throughout the country, to include law enforcement and making sure that we have a voice at the table for federal policies and federal plans,” he said. “I did not see that the first four years as I did today.”