Trump widens purge of DHS leadership
President Donald Trump continued to dismantle the nation’s top domestic security agency yesterday as the White House announced the imminent removal of US Secret Service Director Randolph ‘‘Tex’’ Alles, the latest in a series of departures from the Department of Homeland Security.
A day after Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to step aside following a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, senior DHS officials remained in a fog about the fate of their agency’s leaders, expecting more firings as part of a widening purge.
‘‘They are decapitating the entire department,’’ said one DHS official, noting that the White House had given no cause for Alles’ removal.
The instability extends to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose director, William ‘‘Brock’’ Long, left the DHS in February after supervising emergency and recovery efforts for several major natural disasters. Francis Cissna, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and DHS General Counsel John Mitnick could be the next to go, DHS officials said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly of their frustrations with the White House.
Successive presidents have viewed stability at the DHS – created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – as a top priority for national security, counterterrorism efforts and, more broadly, the country’s collective peace of mind.
With nearly two dozen agencies and subagencies, the DHS is responsible for safeguarding the country’s immigration system, cybernetworks, land borders and coasts while responding to disasters and protecting the country’s public officials.
Trump is furious about the department’s inability to reduce unauthorised migration to the United States, with one of his signature campaign issues devolving in public. But several administration officials said yesterday that Trump appears to be taking out his frustrations on the entire DHS leadership, convinced he needs a full sweep.
Further exacerbating Trump’s struggles with immigration policy yesterday was a California federal judge’s ruling to block the experimental ‘‘Remain in Mexico’’ programme that has sent hundreds of Central American asylum seekers back across the border to wait outside US territory while their asylum claims are processed.
DHS officials viewed the policy as one of Nielsen’s most significant initiatives – they were hoping to expand its use broadly across the southern border – and its halt leaves the department without one of the tools it was counting on to deter more Central American migrants from making the journey.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the border crisis created by the largest migration surge in a decade was being compounded by the removal of so many Homeland Security leaders in rapid succession.
‘‘In addition to congressional dysfunction, I am concerned with growing leadership void within the department tasked with addressing some of the most significant problems facing the nation,’’ Johnson tweeted yesterday.
– Washington Post