Report: Trump Planning to Remove Kirstjen Nielsen as DHS Secretary

Kirstjen Nielsen
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump is planning to remove Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, potentially in the coming weeks, a new report claims.

According to sources who spoke with the Washington Post, Trump has told his closest advisers that he will remove Nielsen from DHS, canceling a border trip scheduled for this week with the former George W. Bush official.

“The announcement could come as soon as this week, three of these officials said,” the Washington Post report alleges.

Attempting to thwart Nielsen’s removal from the DHS position is Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly, who successfully lobbied for Nielsen’s appointment to the agency last year despite her having no experience dealing with the issue of immigration.

Sources have previously told Breitbart News that they believe Nielsen’s firing could lead to Kelly’s resignation, noting that the two are each other’s closest allies in the White House.

Sources denied Nielsen’s ousting to Fox News:

As Breitbart News has chronicled, Nielsen has failed to deter illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and has had to deal with a string of migrant caravans from Central America arriving at the southern border.

Reforms at the border, specifically with asylum rules, have been dealt with by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions while Nielsen has said repeatedly that there is only so much her agency can do as far as building Trump’s proposed border wall and stopping caravans of migrants.

Nielsen has also failed to implement Trump’s “America First” agenda, allowing the business lobby to import more low-skilled foreign workers to take blue-collar U.S. jobs.

Trump’s allies in the administration have blasted Nielsen in the past as a “Never Trumper” who does not support the president’s nationalist-populist immigration agenda.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

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