Homeland Security pick: Securing border top priority
WA S H I N G TO N — P r e s i - dent-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security favors a wall to secure the border with Mexico but said Tuesday that such a structure alone won’t be enough.
“A physical barrier in and of itself will not do the job,” retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during his confirmation hearing. “Certainly it has to be a layered approach.”
Kelly said that if confirmed as the fifth Homeland Security secretary his top priority will be stopping the “illegal movement of people and things.”
Answering questions about his plans to secure the border, stop the flow of drugs and curb illegal border crossings, Kelly told lawmakers border security shouldn’t only focus on the frontier with Mexico, but “1,500 miles south” in Cen- tral America. He said the U.S. should help address violence in a trio of Central American countries — Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — along with demand for drugs in the United States to stem both the flow of drugs and people seeking refuge from violence.
Kel ly ’s c onf i r mati on i s almost assured — a realit y expressed by both Republican and Democratic senators Tuesday — but members of the committee nonetheless pressed him to specify his stances on immigration enforcement, border securit y and some of Trump’s more controversial suggestions during the campaign, including the possibility of a registration system for Muslim immigrants.
Kelly told lawmakers he does not support any registration of people in the United States based on ethnicity or religion.
He also said he accepts with “high confidence” reports from the intelligence community that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Asked about the fate of young immigrants protected from deportation by President Barack Obama, Kelly said “the law would guide” him in every decision he will make if confirmed.