Associated Press: “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.”
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