Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan Is Out
Updated at 8:15 p.m. ET
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan is leaving his post, the latest casualty at the department responsible for protecting U.S. borders.
President Trump said in a tweet Friday night that McAleenan had done an "outstanding job" but that he wanted to "spend more time with family and go to the private sector."
Trump added that he would announce a new acting secretary next week.
During his tenure, McAleenan, a career civil servant, managed to decrease the number of people entering the United States illegally across the southern border. But in an interview with The Washington Post last week, he complained about the "tone, the message, the public face and approach" of the nation's immigration policy.
The departure continues a purge of leadership at the Department of Homeland Security at Trump's behest and raises more uncertainty over management at the massive agency created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Since April, former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph "Tex" Alles and acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Ronald Vitiello have resigned.
In June, Trump also accepted the resignation of acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders.
Trump elevated McAleenan to serve as acting replacement for Nielsen just days after he said he wanted the administration to go in a "tougher direction" as illegal border crossings had increased.
McAleenan previously served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection after having served as acting commissioner since the beginning of the Trump administration.
He was well-liked among Republican and Democratic administrations. In a letter to Congress obtained by ABC News expressing "enthusiastic support" for McAleenan's nomination to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection, officials from both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations called McAleenan "supremely qualified."
But he quickly drew scrutiny from hard-liners close to Trump for his ties to the Obama administration, where he was deputy commissioner of the agency. [Copyright 2019 NPR]
