We include Trump admin illegal personnel moves, worried Trump party members and more on how department bosses did NOT follow thru on Trump orders to even more illegal actions….
This IS increasing looking like a President run amuck and Congress, America and the rest of the world watching to point of becoming numb to the bull shit…
Making America Great?
Hardly….
A inept chief executive …..
More like it….
And maybe the last of civil servants trying their best to hold things together while NO ONE wants to remove a man who does not belong in office….
President Donald Trump had had it.
The flow of migrants at the southern border was surging. Another caravan appeared to be forming. And his government had run out of holding space, forcing the release of tens of thousands of families apprehended at the border.
During a meeting with senior aides on the last Thursday in March, Trump demanded drastic action to make good on the threat he’d tweeted that morning: Shut the southern border. Curbing illegal immigration was his signature issue, he railed. Why couldn’t he deliver?
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen urged the president to reconsider. Her agency had already diverted hundreds of border agents away from certain crossings to process migrant families elsewhere, creating what would soon become considerable bottlenecks. Closing ports completely, she reasoned, would only encourage migrants to cross elsewhere — illegally.
Trump wasn’t having it. Shut the ports at El Paso, Texas, at noon tomorrow, he ordered. End of meeting.
The directive set off a frantic behind-the scenes push to get Trump to change his mind, and he ultimately relented. But the episode launched a turbulent 12-day stretch that would lead to the eventual resignation of Nielsen , the potential dismissal of much of her agency’s top leadership and the beginning of a new phase in which immigration hard-liners at the White House are determined to wield considerably more influence over Homeland Security…..
Republican lawmakers in Washington are worried about their party leader….
But will probably not do much of anything except complain to reporters….
Trump’s action could cost the party even more seats in the House next election and even the Senate….
“I thought that Nielsen was doing a fantastic job,” added Joni Ernst of Iowa, the No. 5 Senate GOP leader. “I would love to see some continuity. I think that’s important.”
Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the most senior GOP senator, is trying to head off even more dismissals as Trump tries to reshape DHS into a “tougher” mold.
In an interview, Grassley expressed concern that Trump may soon boot U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Francis Cissna and Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, who heads the office of policy and strategy at USCIS.
“I heard that they are on the list to be fired,” Grassley said. “They are doing in an intellectual-like way what the president wants to accomplish. So no, they should not go.”
Republicans empathize with Trump’s frustrations over the border and Congress’ languid pace at changing immigration laws. They mostly backed him on his 35-day government shutdown over the border wall, buckling only as the standoff dragged into its second month.
Most of them hated his emergency declaration on the southern border, but only 25 GOP lawmakers between the two chambers ended up bucking him. And when Trump and Miller sought to tank an immigration compromise last year, Senate Republicans overwhelmingly sided with the president and left Democrats holding the bag on the legislative collapse.
But on immigration, the party is not in lockstep with Trump. So even as the president pursues more aggressive strategies on the border, the GOP might not stick with him ahead of an election cycle that has the Senate up for grabs and with Republicans eager to take back the House….
Trump’s replacement for Neilsen comes under questioning…..
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and several legal experts are questioning President Donald Trump’s authority to bypass a senior Homeland Security official in order to install a hand-picked acting head of the Cabinet agency that oversees immigration enforcement.
After Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Sunday that she was resigning, Trump announced on Twitter that Customs and Border Patrol Director Kevin McAleenan would take over DHS on an acting basis.
However, in a letter to Trump on Monday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote that “the law of succession at the Department is clear” that upon Nielsen’s departure the temporary duty to lead the agency would pass to Undersecretary for Management Claire Grady.
The legal hitch could lead Trump to fire Grady, since she appears to be an obstacle to McAleenan being able to assume the top role at the agency.
“The Under Secretary for Management, Claire M. Grady, who has served in that position since August 2017 and as the Acting Deputy Secretary or Senior Official Performing the Duties [of deputy secretary] since April 2018, is statutorily required to serve as Acting Secretary,” wrote Thompson, the Homeland Security chairman. “I strongly urge you to follow the law in this matter and to nominate a suitable candidate for Secretary as expeditiously as possible.”
Trump’s announcement Sunday drew quick pushback from legal analysts who said he lacked the authority to make the move — as long as Grady remains in her post….