John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff who also headed Homeland Security, wants Democrats who have criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for enforcing the law to “go to hell.”
Asked by Larry O’Connor for his podcast about the long list of liberal House and Senate members who want to abolish ICE, Kelly, a former Marine Corps general, said, “They can go to hell. These are good people.”
He added, “The members of Congress who say those kinds of things, first of all, they don’t believe it, but they can go to hell because those people are doing within the law and within humanity exactly what they are supposed to be doing, and they focus on illegal aliens that are criminals.”
Kelly spoke to O’Connor at the Sea Island Summit, a political conference hosted by the Washington Examiner.
Kelly, who at Homeland Security was the top immigration officer, also ripped “sanctuary cities” for protecting illegal immigrants who are charged with crimes.
“The sanctuary cities, it’s just astounding, but it’s political, it has nothing to do with reality. You know, ‘Trump’s a bad guy, everything he does is a bad guy. He’s anti-immigration.’ He’s not,” said Kelly, explaining that the nation lets 1.1 million legal immigrants in every year.
He added, “Illegal aliens are a different story entirely, and as I used to say to the Congress all the time, ‘If you don’t like what we’re doing, or ICE is doing, or what DHS is doing, then change the law. But don’t rant and rave to me about how these are bad people. These are good people.’”
