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Nielsen’s resignation as DHS secretary comes amid a surge of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and an expanded Catch and Release policy that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been tasked with carrying out. During Nielsen’s tenure as DHS secretary, illegal immigration has increased nearly every month over the last year and a half. Simultaneously, the Trump administration has yet to construct a border wall on new land at the southern border that did not previously have barriers built by the Bush and Obama administrations. Most recently, officials with the National ICE Council accused Nielsen of “grossly”...

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is resigning, President Trump announced in a tweet Sunday. CBS News first reported Nielsen's impending departure, which Mr. Trump announced after a 5 p.m. meeting with Nielsen at the White House.

Homeland Security will transfer up to 2,000 officers away from the ports of entry to assist the Border Patrol, Homeland Security Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Monday, escalating the all-hands approach to trying to stop the massive illegal immigration surge. Ms. Nielsen also ordered Customs and Border Protection to speed up its plans to make migrants wait in Mexico while they demand asylum in the U.S. She said the moves were stopgaps, and the real solutions must come from Capitol Hill. But they do offer a chance to dent the surge of migrants that is reaching unprecedented levels of children...

The government is on track to catch nearly 100,000 illegal immigrants at the border this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Monday, renewing the administration’s plea for Congress to do something. That number would be the worst in more than a decade, and it’s more troubling than the worst years because the migrants are children and families who despite being unauthorized, are almost impossible to deport. “The situation at our Southern Border has gone from a crisis, to a national emergency, to a near systemwide meltdown,” Ms. Nielsen said in delivering an update on the state of her department...

DHS secretary says so many migrants are raped on the way to the U.S. that ICE gives EVERY girl 10 and older a pregnancy test – and 'recycling rings' let illegals reuse children over and over to jump the border. (Full title). DHS ... has uncovered 'recycling rings' that let trafficked adults reuse the same children over and over again to pose as family units... rape is so common among migrant caravans that every girl over age 10 who enters the U.S. without papers is given a pregnancy test. ... Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Wednesday that young female...

Full headline: DHS chief Nielsen: Central American countries ‘want their children back’ but U.S. can’t send them because the law doesn’t allow itHomeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a House committee on Thursday that Central American governments in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador have said they want the U.S. to return their children, but that can’t happen under current law. “What we hear from the Northern Triangle governments – they have said this publicly. I am sure that they will tell you when you visit them – is they want their children back,” she told the House Homeland Security Committee....

Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security released new numbers showing 76,000 illegal aliens crossed the southern border into the United States in February, further overwhelming and hemoraging resources. They were apprehended. White House Press Secretary Sanders is putting that number into context. Saagar Enjeti ✔@esaagar Sarah Sanders on new border apprehension numbers: "76,000 illegal individuals came across our border just last month alone.... That would fill MetLife stadium.... If that doesn't define crisis, I don't know what does." 134 In January, 58,000 individuals crossed. "As border personnel deal with the surge of family unit aliens and alien minors arriving...

The Trump administration began implementing a new hard-line immigration policy by sending a single asylum-seeker from Central America back to Tijuana, Mexico, to await his assigned court date later this year in San Diego. The first asylum-seeker to be returned to Mexico was a Honduran man identified as Carlos Catarlo Gomez. He appeared confused and scared by the throng of reporters waiting for him Tuesday on the Mexican side of the San Ysidro border crossing, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was whisked away by Mexican authorities. Officially dubbed "Migrant Protection Protocols," the policy was announced by Homeland Security...

Democrats are finally acknowledging what we’ve always known about them: emotion is the basis of their whole ideology, and facts are just inconvenient obstacles to their extremist ambitions. Within just a few days of each other, leading Democrats representing both the establishment and progressive wings of the party separately revealed that they and their liberal colleagues have no interest in letting facts or figures get in the way of their moral certitude. First, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly interrupted a briefing on border security by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, declaring, “I reject your facts” as Nielsen related...

The Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security said they can handle security at President Trump’s State of the Union address — which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants Trump to postpone. Both federal agencies have been largely shuttered as the partial government shutdown enters its record-breaking 26th day. But Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen wrote on Twitter that both agencies are good to go. “The Department of Homeland Security and the US Secret Service are fully prepared to support and secure the State of the Union. We thank the Service for their mission focus and dedication and for all they...

The White House on Friday released the border briefing President Trump tried to get Democratic leaders to see during a meeting earlier this week, saying the public should see the information behind the president’s case for why he wants a border wall. The briefing, which was to be given by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, details increases in drug seizures, arrests of criminals and the surge of illegal immigrant children and families who the administration says are overwhelming agents. But attendees said Democrats’ top leaders interrupted Ms. Nielsen and wouldn’t let her give the briefing. “Some of those present did...

Mexican government cooperating with new policy, Nielsen saysAsylum-seekers who crossed Mexico to reach the U.S. will be shipped back to Mexico to wait while their cases are being processed, the Trump administration announced Thursday, taking a bold and controversial step to try to head off new waves of illegal immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Mexico is on board, and will offer humanitarian visas and work permits so the migrants can live while they wait for a decision from American authorities. The administration’s goal is to keep people from abusing the U.S. asylum system by making bogus requests then,...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), fresh off her underdog congressional win in New York, is quickly distancing herself from the Trump White House. While the president is sending troops down to the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent the 7,500-strong migrant caravan from entering the U.S., Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Sunday that we have nothing to fear from these individuals who are simply seeking asylum. Asking to be considered a refugee & applying for status isn’t a crime. It wasn’t for Jewish families fleeing Germany.It wasn’t for targeted families fleeing Rwanda.It wasn’t for communities fleeing war-torn Syria.And it isn’t for those fleeing violence in Central...

President Trump has decided to remove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and her departure from the administration is likely to occur in the coming weeks, if not sooner, according to five current and former White House officials. Trump canceled a planned trip with Nielsen this week to visit U.S. troops at the border in South Texas and told aides over the weekend he wants her out as soon as possible, these officials said. The president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen’s lackluster performance on immigration enforcement and is believed to be looking for a replacement who...

President Trump is planning to oust Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as early as this week, The Washington Post reported on Monday. Five current and former White House officials told the Post that Trump is planning to remove Nielsen as soon as possible. White House chief of staff John Kelly is reportedly fighting the president on the matter, hoping to keep Nielsen in place. Kelly hired Nielsen as his chief of staff while DHS secretary and has reportedly defended her for months. Trump has berated Nielsen in public and in private since she was hired, aggressively going after her during...

Resistance leader Allison Hrabar said in an undercover video that as a federal employee, she couldn’t be fired, but she may have overstated her case. Project Veritas released a statement Monday from Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores indicating that Ms. Hrabar, formerly a federal paralegal, has either resigned or been dismissed. “She is no longer an employee,” Ms. Flores said in the statement.

The woman accusing President Trump’s United States Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a “rape attempt” when the two were in high school previously signed a letter fighting Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—an open borders advocacy organization—letter was written and sent to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions in June. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor, signed the ACLU letter as “Christine Blasey Ph.D. Psychologist,” signing off on statements that accused Trump of using southern border enforcement to “traumatize children” and claimed the Zero...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on Thursday called President Trump’s furious reaction to an anonymous administration official's op-ed disparaging him in The New York Times a “manifestation of his instability.” Pelosi said her “first thought” was that Vice President Pence penned the opinion piece, which described efforts among staffers in the Trump administration to push back against the president's instincts. Not long after the op-ed was published Wednesday afternoon, Trump tweeted “Treason?” in all caps. He later demanded the Times identify the piece's author "for National Security purposes." “The president saying it’s treason is, again, a manifestation of his...

The socialist Justice Department employee who harassed the Homeland Security secretary at a Washington restaurant won’t be disciplined for her political tweets, a government watchdog has concluded. Allison Hrabar’s Twitter posts complaining about deportation and detention policy aren’t political activity, the Office of Special Counsel ruled, and so they don’t break the federal Hatch Act. OSC Hatch Act Unit chief Ana Galindo-Marrone said someone must go beyond policy to actually back the election or defeat of a candidate to be in violation of the rules. “The tweets we reviewed from June 19 and 20, which Ms. Hrabar posted while at...

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday called for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which resulted in the separation of migrant children from their parents at the southern border. “It is and was a cruel policy inconsistent with the bedrock values of the nation,” Durbin said during an oversight hearing of the government’s efforts to reunite the families. “Someone in this administration has to accept responsibility.” Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, joins a growing list of senators calling out Nielsen for her role in the administration's...