The American Civil Liberties Union’s sudden call to abolish the Department of Homeland Security is being characterized by opponents as a nonstarter and shameless fundraising attempt, but it is not without support among congressional and other Washington Democrats.
The ACLU, which has taken more than 400 legal actions against the Trump administration since January 2017, called Monday for the shuttering of the federal government’s third-largest department. DHS is under its fifth leader since President Trump took office — one of the reasons the civil liberties organization described it as having acquired a “badge of shame.”
“Nearly 20 years of abuse, waste, and corruption demonstrate the failure of the DHS experiment. Many knew DHS to be an ineffective superagency, but President Trump has converted DHS into our government’s most notable badge of shame,” the ACLU wrote in a tweet.
James Carafano, vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security, blasted these comments as nothing more than a PR stunt intended to help the organization bring in more donations in an election year.
“What the ACLU is doing here is very, very similar with what they did on the Patriot Act,” said Carafano. “The investigative authority already exists and was open to use. The act said you can use these to investigate terrorism. But the ACLU protracted it was an expansion of federal authority — power — in another way … We still have the Patriot Act. We still have our civil liberties.”
Taking apart a 250,000-person department and its more than 20 agencies apart would not be easy or necessarily solve many problems, according to Debra D’Agostino, the founding partner of the Washington-based Federal Law Group. D’Agostino said that Congress’ role in creating DHS 18 years ago following the September 11th terrorist attacks means the legislative branch would have to close the department or make changes to how it operates.
“The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created DHS, so just like the Trump Administration found with its attempt to dismantle [United States Office of Personnel Management], which was created by the Civil Service Reform Act, it will also take an act of Congress to dismantle DHS,” D’Agostino wrote in an email. “That being said, within the confines of the statute, significant changes could be made to the structures and functions of DHS’s sub-agencies.”
Carafano said a Trump White House would not support shuttering the department though the White House did not respond to requests for comment. However, should the House, Senate, and White House bleed blue in November, it would give Democrats the power necessary to pass legislation amending or closing the department. A win by presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would help the chances of gaining support from the executive branch, although it was a bipartisan creation.
David Lapan, the DHS spokesman at the start of the Trump administration and frequent critic of Trump’s handling of DHS, said calls to abolish DHS are no different than calls to dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2017 and 2018 — “slogans, not real solutions.”
“The threats have evolved since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that led to the creation of DHS, and the department and its component agencies are in need of review and reform to ensure they are trained, equipped and functioning properly under current and expected future conditions,” Lapan wrote in an email, adding that Congress should focus on a bigger problem within the department.
“DHS, because it is composed of what were more than 20 separate federal agencies at its creation, requires continuity and strength in leadership,” Lapan said. “The revolving door at the top of DHS and the number of vacancies and temporary fills throughout have also hindered its effectiveness. As the only federal department with a mission to protect the homeland, it must be fully and effectively staffed. Future Administrations and sessions of Congress must ensure DHS is at or near the top of the list of Cabinet agencies with key positions filled by Senate-approved officials, not at the bottom, as it remains today.”
[Opinion: The ACLU is officially a joke]
The ACLU’s demand comes weeks after DHS deployed federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to assist other federal personnel with defending a federal courthouse from rioters attempting to set it on fire. Two former DHS secretaries said acting DHS Secretary Wolf overstepped his authority by doing so while others have said DHS is being used to implement Trump’s agenda. DHS defended the move in a statement Tuesday.
“Attempting to burn down federal property and harm federal law enforcement officers is not a ‘Constitutional right,’ as the ACLU put it,” a DHS spokesman wrote in an email. “It is appalling that the ACLU, an organization supposedly committed to civil rights and the rule of law, would be supportive of violent opportunists attempting to destroy a federal courthouse, an institution dedicated to protecting Constitutional rights. The ACLU’s lack of differentiating between violent criminals and legitimate peaceful protestors reveals their brazen political sham.”
As the department that handles most immigration, national security, and other matters, DHS houses many of the agencies that are affected by White House policy decisions, and thus changes by Trump to immigration, border, and other policies.
