Lawmakers in the upper chamber of Congress took a major step that paves the way for Chad Wolf to become the next acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Read the full storySenate Paves the Way for Chad Wolf to Become Next DHS Chief
Tag: Kevin McAleenan
ICE Facilities to Receive Security Overhaul Following Violent Attacks
Immigration and Customs Enforcement will soon beef up security at facilities in response to a recent slate of violence against the agency’s detention centers and offices across the country.
Read the full storyDHS Chief: ‘We Have 3,000 People Already Deployed’ For Hurricane Dorian
cting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said federal agencies are prepared to take on Hurricane Dorian, which upgraded to a catastrophic Category 5 storm.
Read the full storyDHS Chief McAleenan Praises Supreme Court Decision: ‘Big Victory’ for Border Wall
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan lauded the Supreme Court decision allowing the administration to use military funds to build additional border wall.
Read the full storyDHS Chief Adamantly Denies He Leaked ICE Raid Details to the Media
by Jason Hopkins Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan vehemently denied that he was the source of a leak that led to the White House canceling its plan for mass deportation raids. “Absolutely not,” McAleenan said Thursday night when Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked if he was the leaker. “I would not, and have not, ever leaked details of a sensitive law enforcement operation. My primary responsibility is the safety of the men and women who go out there every day to protect American people. It’s just not true.” McAleenan’s denial comes after President Donald Trump announced — and then abruptly canceled — a plan earlier this month to conduct mass Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests of illegal aliens across the country. At first, Trump said the cancellation was to give time for his administration to reach a deal with Democrats on the immigration crisis. However, several sources within the administration began claiming that the president had to cancel the operation because key details of the plan were leaked to the media, revealing the day, number of people being targeted, and the cities involved. Executing the raid when such information was out in the open put ICE agents…
Read the full storyOfficials Accuse DHS Chief Kevin McAleenan of Personally Sabotaging President Trump’s Planned ICE Raids
by Jason Hopkins Administration officials are accusing Homeland Security Acting Director Kevin McAleenan of sabotaging Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) deportation raids by leaking key details of the plan. President Donald Trump abruptly announced Saturday that he would delay plans for Sunday raids targeting around 2,000 illegal immigrants across the country. The president claimed the two-week hiatus would give the White House time to reach a consensus with Democrats on “asylum and loophole” issues at the southern border. However, senior administration officials say there is much more to the story. Current and former officials within the administration who spoke to the Washington Examiner and BuzzFeed are accusing McAleenan of ruining the Sunday operation by either personally releasing details of the plan or by having people in his staff do it for him. “I know he has not approved of this operation for months,” one source familiar with the matter said to the Washington Examiner. “The president wouldn’t leak that. ICE wouldn’t leak that. There’s only a few people involved in these discussions. … The only one who could have shared the details of those operations were [McAleenan]. Revealing details of the deportation raids, such as dates and locations, put ICE…
Read the full storyTrump Confident New Migrant Pact with Mexico Will Succeed
President Donald Trump claimed Sunday that Mexico “for many years” has not been cooperative to curb the surge of migrants traveling through it to reach the United States, but believes a new agreement will alleviate the problem. The president warned, however, that “if for some unknown reason” Mexico does not stanch the flow of Central American migrants heading north to the U.S., “we can always go back to our previous, very profitable” imposition of tariffs on Mexican exports sent to the United States. “But I don’t believe that will be necessary,” he added. A deal announced Friday calls for Mexico to dispatch 6,000 troops to its border with Guatemala to halt the flow of migrants, while the U.S. gained new authority to force asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their legal cases in the U.S. are pending. Trump said there is one particular provision of the pact that has yet to be disclosed but will be announced “at the appropriate time.” “There is now going to be great cooperation between Mexico & the USA, something that didn’t exist for decades,” he said on Twitter. “Now I have full confidence, especially after speaking to their President (Andrés Manuel López…
Read the full storyTrump Wants Migrants to Pay a Fee to Request Asylum
by Jason Hopkins The Trump administration proposed a policy that slaps asylum applicants with a fee and places greater restrictions on their work permits. In a memorandum delivered to Attorney General William Barr and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Monday night, President Donald Trump asked to move forward with new asylum restrictions. The requests include imposing a fee for making an asylum request and barring people who tried entering the country illegally from getting a work permit until their case is adjudicated. The directive also seeks to expedite the asylum process by requiring immigration courts to settle cases within 180 days. “The purpose of this memorandum is to strengthen asylum procedures to safeguard our system against rampant abuse of our asylum process,” read a portion of the memo from Trump, who added that the “security and humanitarian crisis” at the U.S. southern border “undermines our nation’s security and sovereignty.” The White House has not yet established a specific fee for asylum claims, and the memo does not ask that the orders be followed on immediately. Officials have been given a 90-day window to formulate a game plan. The memorandum comes as the number of illegal migrants appearing…
Read the full storyUS ‘Aggressively’ Building Trump’s Border Wall, DHS Chief Says
by Jason Hopkins The acting secretary of Homeland Security pushed back on the narrative that President Donald Trump’s border wall is not being built, pointing out that construction has actually been going at an aggressive pace. “So normally for a federal project of this scope, from the time you get funded to starting, it’s over two years,” Kevin McAleenan said Tuesday on Fox News. “We’ve already built the [fiscal year] 2017 funding in less than two years. That shows how aggressively we’re moving out on this.” McAleenan — who became acting DHS secretary earlier in April after Kirstjen Nielsen resigned — has been tapped by the Trump administration to lead the agency at a time when the U.S. southern border is experiencing record numbers of illegal migrants, many of them Central American families. Trump has been forced to fight tooth-and-nail with congressional Democrats over border wall funding. The federal government experienced its longest shutdown in U.S. history as the two camps fought over how much money could be appropriated for wall construction. The White House is being sued after it declared a national emergency on the southern border, allowing it to allocate billions more in funding. The new DHS…
Read the full storyKevin McAleenan, the Upcoming Leader of Homeland Security
by Jason Hopkins Kirstjen Nielsen will officially vacate her position atop the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, leaving Kevin McAleenan as the acting head. President Donald Trump, frustrated over the growing immigration crisis on the U.S. southern border, accepted Nielsen’s resignation after meeting with her at the White House on Sunday. The president went on to announce that McAleenan, the current commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will be taking over her position in an acting capacity. Who is McAleenan and how will he likely manage the surge of illegal migrant crisis? The soon-to-be DHS secretary touts nearly two decades of experience working in immigration enforcement. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, McAleenan worked for some time as an attorney in California. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, prompted him to apply for the FBI, but he ended up working in what is now CBP. He quickly moved up the ranks under both the Bush and Obama administrations. McAleenan was the port director for the Los Angeles International Airport and he served as the executive director of CBP’s antiterrorism office. He was appointed by former President Barack Obama as deputy commissioner of CBP in 2014, and he was awarded the…
Read the full storyCarol Swain Commentary: How Leftist Politics Influences the Democrats’ Open-Borders Policy
by Dr. Carol M. Swain Congressional Democrats often claim their open-borders immigration policy is “compassionate” — but their so-called compassion doesn’t extend to American citizens or legal permanent residents. In fact, the Democrats’ compassion is calculated and strategic — anything but sincere. The immigration situation gets worse every year. It has become a crisis that is undeniable. Senator Lindsey Graham recently announced that border officials are now predicting the arrival of more than one million illegal aliens to the U.S. this year, based on the surge of apprehensions in March. “Just met with Acting [ICE] Director Ron Vitiello,” Graham tweeted. “If March numbers hold, we are on track for 1.2 million illegal immigrants coming into the country in 2019.” The immigration crisis is reminiscent of a 1960s ploy concocted by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. Their underhanded aim was to change the welfare system in America by overwhelming “the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.” A similar tactic is underway now. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan says, “The surge numbers are just overwhelming the entire system.” Likewise, Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security Secretary under former…
Read the full storyPresident Trump Accepts DHS Chief Kirstjen Nielsen’s Resignation, Names Kevin McAleenan as Replacement
by Chuck Ross President Donald Trump announced Sunday that Kirstjen Nielsen is resigning as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, bringing an end to an at-times rocky relationship between the two. Trump said on Twitter that Kevin McAleenan, the current commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will take over as acting homeland security secretary. The announcement came shortly after Nielsen met with Trump privately at the White House to discuss her future. Trump and Nielsen have battled behind the scenes over the administration’s immigration policy and efforts to build a wall on the southern border. That tension reached its breaking point in the days after Trump abruptly pulled the nomination of Ronald Vitiello to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2019 ….I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2019 Trump said he wanted to go with someone “tougher”…
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