Fair or not, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will probably always be the face of family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The brusque 46-year-old former Bush administration official this week became known as the Cabinet member who skewed the facts at a combative press conference in defense of President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy, and who convened a “working dinner” at a Mexican restaurant while audio of hysterical Spanish-speaking children circulated on social media.
On Wednesday, she helped Trump walk it back with a new executive order that would reverse the decision. She got praise from the president. But several congressional Democrats had already demanded her resignation, with one senator repeatedly accusing her of lying and quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in a tweet criticizing the Cabinet secretary.
“He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it,” tweeted Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., after reports that Nielsen had denied family separations at the border was a form of child abuse.
“We have high standards,” Nielsen had told reporters earlier this week in defending the policy. “We give them meals and we give them education and we give them medical care. There are videos, there are TVs.”
According to people close to the secretary, family separations weren’t her idea. One person, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Nielsen had been “working nonstop” to find a solution.
The polarizing path Nielsen has taken is somewhat surprising for a government bureaucrat and policy wonk known more for her loyalty to White House chief of staff John Kelly and her expertise in cybersecurity than the hardline immigration views espoused by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House adviser Stephen Miller.
Nielsen was considered an expert in both homeland and national security policy who worked in the Bush administration and had a hand in its handling of Hurricane Katrina.
Two years after the 2005 hurricane, Congress issued reports that faulted the White House Homeland Security Council — where Nielsen directed preparedness and response — for failing to take the lead in staying on top of the unfolding disaster.
