McCaul no longer in running for Homeland Security chief,
Immigration stance might be too weak for the White House.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, once a front-runner for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, no longer is being considered for the position, the American-Statesman has confirmed.
The Austin Republican, who is not a hard-line supporter of the border wall with Mexico, reportedly ran afoul of John Kelly, the former head of Homeland Security who is now the White House chief of staff.
The pressure to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promises has intensified as the GOP-controlled Congress this month failed to roll back the Affordable Care Act.
Construction of a “big beautiful wall” on the southern border was Trump’s signature issue during the campaign, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, a part of Homeland Security, announced this week that eight prototype walls were being built near San Diego.
According to Politico, which first reported McCaul being skipped over for the job, Kelly “privately raised red flags about McCaul’s stance on immigration,” which has been considered too soft by some White House staff members.
“The urgency of some kind of success is growing in the Trump administration,” said Bill Miller, an Austin political consultant with Republican and Democratic clients who said he was surprised by McCaul’s purging. “McCaul is a casualty of the failure of others.”
“It’s hard to know the internal political thinking and what specific factors might have kept McCaul from the job,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “But if it did have something to do with the wall, it’s because Trump’s anti-immigration base is getting agitated that there has been no progress on Trump’s central campaign promise (along with the failure to repeal Obamacare). The policy-makers almost all agree with McCaul — the only wall that will work will be a virtual one, at least in large part.”
“The White House may be going in another direction,” U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said Thursday night. “McCaul is probably the best qualified person to be homeland secretary. He’s a common-sense, moderate type of individual. If they’re looking for an ideologue, McCaul is not that person.”
James Norton, a former homeland security official in the George W. Bush administration, said, “It seems that many in the White House still don’t believe that McCaul has the Steve King-type far right credentials on border and immigration.”
King, R-Iowa, is a firebrand on illegal immigration and the border wall who has a small-scale wall prototype in his congressional office.
“There is a perception that Chairman McCaul would not be strong on the issue, which I think is a little unfair,” Norton said.
McCaul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Kelly during a hearing early this year that the travel ban issued by Trump was “problematic” because it created an uproar and travel upheaval by suddenly limiting those with visas and residents with green cards from seven Muslim-majority countries. The issue continues to be litigated.
McCaul has not been an enthusiastic backer of the border wall, although he supports a comprehensive border security package that is scheduled for a Wednesday vote by his committee. The Border Security for America Act includes $10 billion to build a physical structure or use technology along the southern border and $5 billion to improve ports of entry. It also calls for hiring 5,000 more Border Patrol agents and 5,000 more Customs and Border Protection officers.
Because of GOP-imposed term limits, McCaul is set to step down as Homeland Security chairman at the end of 2018, but he also is in line to become chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee beginning in 2019 if Republicans retain majority control of the House.