WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on Tuesday challenged members of Congress critical of the Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement to either change the laws or "shut up."
In a wide-ranging speech, the retired Marine general defended the work of Homeland Security employees, from immigration agents to airport security officers, saying they are unjustifiably maligned by critics as they enforce laws intended to keep America safe.
He described Homeland Security staff members as "political pawns" during his speech at George Washington University, in which he also laid out the threats facing the United States -- from international criminal networks to homegrown terrorists.
"They have been asked to do more with less, and less, and less," Kelly said. "They are often ridiculed and insulted by public officials, and frequently convicted in the court of public opinion on unfounded allegations testified to by street lawyers and spokespersons."
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Several times in the speech, he took on critics of the agency after months of complaints from Congress, civil-rights groups and protesters that the department is targeting Muslim travelers for unfair scrutiny.
Kelly said criticism of the agency's work is often misguided and based on inaccurate reporting.
Lawmakers, politicians and advocacy groups may hear "a partial or inaccurate media report" and "assume the men and women of DHS are intentionally abusing innocent individuals while breaking or ignoring U.S. laws or court orders, instead of assuming as they should that the men and women of DHS are carrying out their assigned mission in accordance with the law."
"There's always, always, always more to the story," he said.
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Kelly said the public and public officials should err on the side of assuming that the agency's employees are acting within the law. And for members of Congress who don't like the laws, Kelly said they "should have the courage and skill to change the laws. Otherwise they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines."
On reports of people being held up at airports for secondary screening or being refused entry into the U.S., Kelly said "believe me, it's not because of their skin color" or where they're from, or because of their religion. Instead, he said, it's because an indicator or tip, such as something they said or the content on their mobile phone, prompted officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to make that decision.
"I can't tell you the number of phone calls I get from members of Congress telling me about how we're refusing someone's entry at LAX or at JFK because they're Muslim or because they're Arab," Kelly said, referring to international airports in Los Angeles and New York. "It's absolutely not true."
Pot in cross hairs
Critics have also argued that the agency is too heavy-handed in enforcement operations, including arresting foreigners in the U.S. illegally when that is their only offense.
Arrest of people in the U.S. illegally have totaled more than 21,000 people since President Donald Trump took office in January, compared with about 16,000 people during the same time last year. About a quarter of those arrests were people who had no criminal history, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
While the number of deportations has actually decreased slightly since Trump took office, the crackdown has left immigrant communities and advocates worried that just about any person in the country illegally could be swept up. During former President Barack Obama's administration, agents were told to focus strictly on migrants convicted of serious crimes or those who otherwise posed a threat to public safety.
Kelly said stepped-up enforcement has had a dramatic effect. He said dangerous criminals are being arrested or are hiding, fearing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking for them.
A sharp drop in arrests at the Mexican border suggests that fewer people have been trying to cross illegally since Trump took office.
In March, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested about 12,100 people trying to cross the border illegally. It was the smallest number of arrests in a month in at least 17 years. Border Patrol Chief Ron Vitiello said in a speech in San Antonio last week that it was likely the fewest arrests in about 45 years.
Kelly also promised a border crackdown on marijuana, which is illegal under federal law but legal under state law in eight states and the District of Columbia.
In his remarks about drugs Tuesday, Kelly said arrests on marijuana charges will be used to bolster the case for deportation against people in the country illegally, he said.
He appeared to backtrack somewhat from comments in an interview with NBC's Meet the Press that aired Sunday. Kelly said in that interview that the solution to drug problems in the United States was "not arresting a lot of users. The solution is a comprehensive drug-demand reduction program in the United States that involves every man and woman of goodwill."
Also on Tuesday, Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a report estimating that Trump's proposed border wall could cost $70 billion to build. Kelly has estimated its price tag at $21 billion, while congressional Republicans have put the cost at $12 billion to $15 billion.
Democrats also distributed a 30-page document from Customs and Border Protection that outlined where the agency planned to build new structures or replace aging infrastructure along the border. It said new construction would start in San Diego, an area of the border were the government already owns land along the frontier with Mexico.
If Congress approves extra money this year, the document shows, structures could be built along about 34 miles of border in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The Border Patrol's sectors in Tucson, Ariz., and El Paso, Texas, could see new structures if Congress approves money for the 2018 budget.
Tougher rules hinted
Kelly also alluded in his speech to a recent decision to ban portable computer devices, such as laptops and tablets, from the passenger cabins of planes coming from 10 airports in the Middle East and Africa, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. He hinted that such restrictions could grow.
"We have taken some decisions about that that we will likely expand," he said. He did not say how or when such changes might happen. That restriction, which was put in place a month ago, was based on intelligence reports indicating further efforts by terrorists to develop homemade explosives that could be hidden in electronics and then manually detonated aboard a plane, according to people familiar with the matter.
Kelly also indicated that his agency is reviewing how the United States allows in visitors from Europe and other members of the Visa Waiver Program. Under that program, visitors from the 20 nations do not need a visa, or the screening that goes with a visa, to enter the United States.
"We have to start looking very hard at that program -- not eliminating it, but looking very hard at it," he said. Of paramount concern to U.S. security officials have been the thousands of European citizens thought to have traveled to Syria to join terrorist groups. As more of those people return to their home countries in Europe, they could then travel to the United States.
The expected military defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will decentralize the threat from the terrorist group and put the U.S. at greater risk as those militants return home and plot further attacks, Kelly said. It's a concern shared by European allies, he said, as large numbers of fighters are already going back.
"Most of those countries are visa waiver countries," Kelly said.
Countries in the visa waiver program include Belgium, Spain, France, the U.K., Italy and Germany as well as non-European nations such as Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Chile and Japan. People from the visa countries aren't eligible if they also hold dual citizenship from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan.
The United States is "the Super Bowl, in terms of terrorists, and that's what they want to do and that's where they want to come," Kelly said.
"They want to get here, they want to do us harm," he said. "That's my concern now that we're winning in Iraq and soon to win in Syria, that those fighters go back to their homes in Europe and then very possibly make the trip to the United States."
Information for this article was contributed by Alicia A. Caldwell of The Associated Press; by Devlin Barrett of The Washington Post; and by Nafeesa Syeed of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 04/19/2017