Free Republic

Foreigners who were given emergency refuge in the United States should go home when their emergency is over, says John Kelly, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. That is a dramatic reversal from prior administrations, which have repeatedly extended the supposedly “Temporary Protected Status” stays of roughly 300,000 Haitians, El Salvadorans, Hondurans and others who have fled since the 1990s from natural and man-made disasters to the United States. Kelly’s spokesman, David Lapan, highlighted a second dramatic policy change when he said that Kelly recently told Haitian government officials that the return of 50,000 U.S.-based Haitians would be a...

Immigrant-rights groups were left steaming after Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said most of the illegal immigrant children who streamed into the U.S. in recent years were “a huge scam,” abusing lax policies to gain a foothold here. Mr. Kelly also said the families in Central America and here in the U.S. who orchestrated the dangerous journeys were guilty of “human trafficking” of their own children. “Their families are actually involved in human trafficking at this point,” the tough-talking retired Marine general told...

Homeland Security Secretary Kelly said on Meet the Press Sunday that high-level classified leaks, like those over the Manchester attack in the U.K., are "borderline treason." "I don't know where the leak came from. But I... immediately called my counterpart in the UK.... She immediately brought this topic up. And, if it came from the United States, it's totally unacceptable. And I don't know why people do these kind of things, but it's borderline, if not over the line, of treason." He added: "I believe when you leak the kind of information that seems to be routinely leaked — high,...

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly says President Trump possesses credible evidence that former President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower in New York City last year. Trump claimed on Twitter last Saturday that Obama had his “wires tapped” in Trump Tower before Election Day last year, making the accusation without offering any evidence. “If the president of the United States said that, he’s got his reasons to say it,” Kelly said Monday on CNN’s “The Situation Room." "[Trump’s] got some convincing evidence that that took place.” Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Obama, said last Saturday that Trump’s claims...

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly says he wishes that the rollout of President Donald Trump's travel ban had been delayed until he had a chance to prepare lawmakers for what was coming. Kelly's comment was the most direct acknowledgment by a high-level administration official that the rollout of Trump's executive order had been mishandled. Kelly was speaking Tuesday at a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing examining the order, which temporarily stopped entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations and also temporarily bars the admission of refugees. A court has blocked the order, but the administration is appealing.