Deep State: Donald Trump’s DHS Chief Directed Attack on Trump’s ‘Return to Mexico’ Program

The just-departed head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly asked a group of lawyers to criticize President Donald Trump’s successful policy of keeping migrants in Mexico prior to their court hearings, according to a report in BuzzFeed News.
The request was made by Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of DHS, who quit the agency Wednesday, November 13. The BuzzFeed article was posted the day after he quit, and it said:

A group of senior DHS officials not involved with [the Migrant Protection Protocols program] and organized by recently departed acting secretary Kevin McAleenan to review the implementation of the program made a number of recommendations that suggest significant issues created by the program at the border. In a memo from McAleenan prior to his departure, the former acting secretary called on DHS sub-agencies to deliver a plan within a month to address the recommendations and three months to implement the changes.

“The big takeaway from it is that MPP is not working,” said a former DHS official. “This seems to align with every criticism you hear of MPP. Some of these recommendations are phrased mildly but suggest they found serious problems that need to be remedied.”

“On the way out, McAleenan tosses a hand grenade behind him,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “That is the kind of obstruction of administration policy you would expect from the person who very likely would have been Hillary’s DHS secretary,” he said, adding:


The MPP has been successful at every metric, improving the asylum process for more than 55,000 individuals, and the Department is committed to continually strengthening the program. The former Acting Secretary requested this independent, internal review of MPP because it has been such an effective program and will continue to be for the long-term.

The Department is committed to the integrity of MPP and will continue to assess and improve the program if and when necessary. Successful organizations continually audit and review their programs to develop best practices and seek ways to improve effectiveness and efficiency, which is why this report was requested. The independent group was composed of officers from the Offices of Privacy and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and lawyers who were not involved in the creation of the program. We thank the independent team for their recommendations and look forward to the review and response by the subject matter experts.

The BuzzFeed article was posted as the Los Angeles Times posted an article describing agency officials who reject the MPP program, and as a Democrat senator released a report critical of the MPP program.

“It is kind of suspicious that [McAleenan’s report] gets published the same time as the Los Angeles Times story. They are related: Were they coordinated?” Krikorian asked, adding, “The bureaucracy is trying to decide what [presidential] policy says.”

DHS Chief Directed Attack on Trump's ‘Return to Mexico’ Program