Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Chad Wolf used his “State of the Homeland Address” at the agency’s headquarters on Wednesday to address white supremacist terrorism as the biggest national security threat facing America right now—just kidding. The unlawfully appointed official’s remarks instead “amounted to a Trump campaign rally speech,” immigrant rights advocacy organization America’s Voice (AV) said, complete with racist lies about “foreigners seeking to harm and kill Americans.”
Bullshit, when Unlawful Chad’s own department said in a draft report that “[t]he most dangerous threats to U.S. national security in the coming year are violent white supremacists,” Daily Kos’ Hunter wrote on Wednesday. But Unlawful Chad wasn’t giving this State of the Homeland Address—has anyone even heard of that before?— to discuss facts and actual threats to the safety of communities everywhere, he was there to carry out an anti-immigrant hit job for his boss’ reelection chances.
“On immigration, Wolf praised President Trump’s signature (literally) obsession, the border wall, while outrageously claiming that the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy of sending asylum seekers out of the country without a hearing or oversight is done to benefit migrants and keep them safe,” America’s Voice continued. Lies: The Trump administration itself has been caught admitting the policy is unsafe. Desperate asylum-seekers have drowned trying to return to the U.S., while hundreds of others have been subjected to unspeakable violence while waiting for their turn in U.S. immigration court.
Wolf “reiterated that he sees most asylum claims as frivolous, not the desperate act of people fleeing violence,” America’s Voice continued. “He even claimed that cooperation agreements with Central American ‘partners’ were ‘allowing migrants to seek protection closer to home.’”
Once again, bullshit. “Neither the outgoing or incoming Guatemalan governments actually want ... to accept these asylum seekers,” immigration reporter Jack Herrera tweeted last year, saying that Trump “has strong-armed” Guatemala “by withholding aid and threatening tariffs.” And according to a new whistleblower report, Wolf’s unlawfully appointed deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, ordered the reassignment or firing of analysts who produced reports confirming the kinds of dangerous conditions that cause asylum-seeking parents and children to flee for safety to the U.S.
Unlawful Chad pushed the threats about “foreigners” even as research has long, long shown that immigrants, regardless of legal status, are less likely than U.S.-born Americans (and Trump officials) to commit crimes. The administration keeps parroting this lie as officials from the impeached president on down commit corrupt acts so regularly that the mainstream media has barely batted an eyelash at the fact that the administration has ignored pesky little things like Supreme Court decisions for weeks now.
“The speech was pretty typical Trump campaign fare—right down to the fact that it was being delivered at taxpayer expense inside a federal building as part of the official duties of a government official,” AV’s Douglas Rivlin said. They note the true “State of the Homeland” is that both Unlawful Chad and Ken are “serving in their senior government positions illegally because Trump went around the normal appointment process and hid them from the ‘advice and consent’ of the U.S. Congress.”
They should both resign, said AV founder and executive director Frank Sharry. They won’t (though I’d love to be shocked!), but they should. Only in this administration could two uniquely unqualified men continue to remain in some of the most powerful positions in the federal government.
Unlawful Chad and Ken “are not interested in protecting Americans from terrorism or protecting democracy from foreign interference,” Sharry said in calling for their resignations. “They are unlawfully appointed lackeys interested only in protecting Trump from losing an election – even if it means real terrorism threats are diminished and Russian criminality is covered up. This cannot stand. They’ve betrayed America. They must resign.”
