"Morally repugnant": Homeland Security advisors resign over immigration policies

[Borealis]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2018/07/17/morally-repugnant-homeland-security-advisory-council-members-resign-over-immigration-policies/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.566f16915a97

Four members of a Homeland Security advisory council have resigned in protest over the Trump administration's immigration policies, citing the “morally repugnant” practice of
separating immigrant families at the border.

Richard Danzig, former secretary of the Navy in the Clinton administration, and Elizabeth Holtzman, a former Democratic congresswoman, were among the group that announced their
resignation Monday in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

The group noted that the Department of Homeland Security did not consult its advisory council before implementing the policy, which separated more than 2,500 children until
President Trump reversed his endorsement of the practice amid an international outcry and signed an order instructing the agency to stop doing so.

“Were we consulted, we would have observed that routinely taking children from migrant parents was morally repugnant, counter-productive and ill-considered,” the group wrote. “We
cannot tolerate association with the immigration policies of this administration, nor the illusion that we are consulted on these matters.”

Two former Obama administration officials — David Martin, a former DHS deputy general counsel, and Matthew Olsen, who served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center
— also signed the letter.

In separate letters also sent to Nielsen, Martin and Holtzman also cited objections more broadly to the administration's immigration policies, including an entry ban on immigrants
from several majority-Muslim countries, the pursuit of billions of dollars for a border wall and Trump's attempts to end a deferred action program for younger immigrants who have lived
in the country illegally since they were children.

“These actions have fueled polarization, alienated state and local governments, and moved us much further from a sustainable, effective, and strategically sensible immigration
enforcement program,” Martin wrote.

Holtzman, who like Martin was appointed by former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson during the Obama administration, wrote to Nielsen that under Trump, “DHS has been transformed into
an agency that is making war on immigrants and refugees.”

In an interview, Holtzman said she did not believe the resignations would have an impact on Trump's decision-making on immigration. But she added, “I do think it's important for the
American people to see that not everybody connected with the government is a brute, is a lawbreaker and that actually some of us do have a measure of conscience.”