“Being a key link in the decision-making process that lead to the disaster of family separation ought to be grounds for dismissal — perhaps even indictment — but certainly not promotion.”
Chad Wolf, as Chief of Staff to then-Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, played an instrumental role in advocating for and implementing family separation policy known as “zero tolerance” that tore more than 5,000 children from their parents, with no plan to reunite them, as a deterrent to families exercising their legal right to ask the U.S. for asylum.
This is the most egregious of Wolf’s known actions within DHS, but it is clear he played a role in other disastrous policy decisions, like the decision to end the TPS program over the objections of key career staff inside and outside DHS, putting hundreds of thousands of long term immigrants in the US at risk of deportation.
The Senate plans to move the nomination of Chad Wolf to a floor vote quickly, but not for the job he is going to do — Acting DHS Secretary — but rather for a job he was previously nominated for in February — Undersecretary of the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans at DHS. Then, after he is confirmed for the Undersecretary job, the White House plans to alter the DHS organizational and succession chart to install Wolf as Acting DHS Secretary. It is all a convoluted process to install a new leader at the agency which has been a personnel and policy nightmare since the beginning of the Trump administration.
According to Pili Tobar, Deputy Director of America’s Voice:
Being a key link in the decision-making process that lead to the disaster of family separation ought to be grounds for dismissal — perhaps even indictment — but certainly not promotion. The policy was nothing short of child abuse that has left a permanent scar on the children, their families and on the reputation and high moral standards of the United States. Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want someone willing to implement their chaotic and cruel policies, with no questions asked, up to and including breaking the law.
The Senate has an opportunity to scuttle the White House’s plans to install another hardline anti-immigrant zealot in the role of Acting Secretary and hold the Trump administration accountable for their transgressions. Sadly, twisting the presidential appointments process and implementing disastrous policies that hurt children and families and undermine national security is what the Republicans are looking for — as long as the new Acting Secretary is willing to just follow orders.
