Immigration News
Neilson met with Trump 5pm on Sunday and presented him with a list of changes she requested in order to continue in her job. He asked her to resign.
This was followed by a firing of several other people in Homeland Security, including the head of the Secret Service, supposedly for the agency’s role in the Mar-a-Lago security breach last week.
The Washington Post reports that Trump had already decided to fire Neilson. This story is also a good history of this DHS shakeup, which began with Trump’s threat to close the border on March 29.
Grassley took to the Washington Post and Fox News to get word to the President not to fire any more people from DHS. On Stephen Miller he said: “I think it would be hard for him to demonstrate he’s accomplished anything for the president.”
NBC News reports that Trump has been called for reinstatement of child separation since January, and that was a factor in Neilson’s conflict with Trump.
The New York Times concurs with the NBC report: “President Trump’s purge of the nation’s top homeland security officials is a sign that he is preparing to unleash an even fiercer assault on immigration, including a possible return of his controversial decision last summer to separate migrant children from their parents, current and former administration officials said Monday.” Trump is looking to do more than just family separation: “further limits on who can seek asylum; stronger action to close ports of entry along the Mexican border; an executive order to end birthright citizenship; more aggressive construction of a border wall; and a more robust embrace of active-duty troops to secure the border against illegal immigration.”
Also on Monday, a judge said Tump’s remain-in-Mexico policy must stop.
The Washington Post reports that some in the Trump White House floated the idea of bussing asylum seekers from the border to sanctuary cities and releasing them there as retribution against democrats: The White House believed it could punish Democrats — including Pelosi — by busing ICE detainees into their districts before their release, according to two DHS whistleblowers who independently reported the busing plan to Congress. One of the whistleblowers spoke with The Washington Post, and several DHS officials confirmed the accounts. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Trump told Kevin McAleenan to close the border over Neilson’s objections, and that he would pardon him if he faced any legal repercussions for the move. This was a factor in why Neilson left the administration. McAleenan is now the acting DHS secretary.
Russia Investigation
Barr testified before the House on Tuesday as part of a routine explanation of DOJ budget request. Of course most of the questions were about Mueller Report, Obamacare, and immigration. He said that Mueller declined to review the Barr letters, and that Barr would release the redacted Mueller report within a week.
Barr testified before the Senate on Wednesday, in which he said he believes the FBI spied on the Trump campaign in 2016. Benn Wittes, who has been supportive of Barr, argues that this is indefensible.
In other news
The Chinese woman arrested in Mar-a-Lago had multiple cell phones and devices to detect hidden cameras. When agents plugged in a thumb drive that belonged to her it immediately began installing Malware.
Julian Assange was extradited to the US on Thursday.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 42.1%