President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied “cleaning house” at the Department of Homeland Security a day after the head of the Secret Service became the latest senior official in the agency to depart.
Kirstjen Nielsen, the head of the department, was forced out on Sunday amid reports that more senior figures could follow, prompting headlines that a “purge” was under way.
“I never said I’m cleaning house,” Trump told reporters at the White House ahead of a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. “I don’t know who came with it. We’ve got a lot of good people over there.”
The changes at Homeland come as Trump signals a tougher line on tackling the numbers of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. His senior White House aide Stephen Miller is reported to have taken the initiative in overseeing a shake-up.
But instead of personnel, Trump blamed legislation for the problems and criticized a federal judge in California for blocking his administration’s attempts to send people claiming asylum back to Mexico as they waited for court hearings in the U.S.
“We have bad laws. We have a judge that has just ruled, incredibly, that he doesn’t want people staying in Mexico — figure that one out,” he said.
Claire Grady, the department’s No. 2 official, John Mitnick, its general counsel, and Francis Cissna, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director, are all reportedly in the firing line. Their fate remains unclear.
