WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is pushing back against a report that she told colleagues she was close to resigning Wednesday after President Donald Trump scolded her at a cabinet meeting. 
 
 Nielsen says in a statement that Trump "is rightly frustrated" that his administration has been prevented "from fully securing the border and protecting the American people." 
 
 She says she shares Trump's frustration. 
 
 The New York Times reported Thursday that the president has growing increasingly angry with Nielsen over what he feels is the country's inability to adequately secure its border. 
 
 The Times reported that Nielsen had drafted a resignation letter but not submitted it. 
 
 Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton says on Twitter that the report is not accurate and Nielsen was not close to resigning. ||||| President Trump has told advisers he has decided to remove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and her departure from the administration is likely to occur in the coming weeks, if not sooner, according to five current and former White House officials. 
 
 Trump canceled a planned trip with Nielsen this week to visit U.S. troops at the border in South Texas and told aides over the weekend that he wants her out as soon as possible, these officials said. The president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen’s lackluster performance on immigration enforcement and is believed to be looking for a replacement who will implement his policy ideas with more alacrity. 
 
 The announcement could come as soon as this week, three of these officials said. 
 
 Trump has changed his mind on key personnel decisions before, and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly is fighting Nielsen’s pending dismissal and attempting to postpone it, aides say. But Kelly’s future in the administration also is shaky, according to three White House officials. 
 
 DHS officials who work with Nielsen declined to address her potential departure Monday. “The Secretary is honored to lead the men and women of DHS and is committed to implementing the President’s security-focused agenda to protect Americans from all threats and will continue to do so,” spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton said in a statement. 
 
 Nielsen has been reluctant to leave the administration before reaching the one-year mark as secretary on Dec. 6, but she has been unhappy in the job for several months, according to colleagues. Trump has berated her during Cabinet meetings, belittled her to other White House staff and tagged her months ago as a “Bushie,” a reference to her previous service under President George W. Bush and meant to cast suspicion on her loyalty. 
 
 [Trump unloads on Homeland Security secretary in lengthy immigration tirade] 
 
 When Nielsen has tried to explain the laws and regulations that prevent the government from drastically curtailing immigration or closing the border with Mexico, as Trump has suggested, the president has grown impatient and frustrated, aides said. 
 
 Nielsen’s departure would leave a leadership void at the government’s third-largest agency, which has 240,000 employees and a $60 billion budget. The deputy secretary job at DHS has been vacant since April, and the White House has not submitted to Congress a nomination for that post. 
 
 Unless Trump were to name another official to lead DHS in an acting capacity, the day-to-day task of running the agency would fall to Claire M. Grady, the undersecretary for management. 
 
 Trump has told White House officials that he has begun contemplating replacements for Nielsen. He could name one of the agency’s other Senate-confirmed principals, such as Kevin Mc­Aleenan, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or David P. Pekoske, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration and a former vice commandant of the Coast Guard. 
 
 “If I were advising the White House, I’d encourage them to nominate someone with executive branch experience,” said one senior DHS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid views about his agency’s leadership. “This will be our fourth secretary in two years. The last thing we want is someone who needs hand-holding.” 
 
 Kris Kobach’s loss in the Kansas governor’s race has generated speculation that Trump could attempt to nominate him as a replacement for Nielsen, but Kobach, Kansas’s secretary of state, remains a polarizing figure whose hard-line views — especially on immigration — are considered by many observers to be too extreme to win Senate confirmation. 
 
 Colleagues who’ve worked closely with Nielsen and defend her performance at DHS say working for Trump on immigration issues is miserable because the president has an unrealistic view of border security and little patience for the intricacies of U.S. immigration law. 
 
 Nielsen was selected for the DHS job by Kelly, and her imminent departure is another indication that his influence over personnel decisions has waned. Kelly has defended her repeatedly, and aides have grown annoyed at their close relationship — he often praises her impromptu in senior staff meetings while not praising other Cabinet members. 
 
 [‘Close the whole thing!’: Border tensions boil over as Trump’s frustrations grow] 
 
 Former colleagues who worked with Nielsen were astonished when Kelly pushed to install her at DHS because she had never led a large organization, let alone one with so many responsibilities. Nielsen worked on disaster-management response in the Bush White House, then in the private sector and academia as a cybersecurity expert before returning to DHS to work as chief of staff under Kelly when he was homeland security secretary during Trump’s first six months in office. 
 
 But it was immigration enforcement that became one of Trump’s biggest frustrations, and the president has blamed her for a rebound this year in the number of people arrested along the Mexican border. 
 
 At the peak of controversy over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” family-separation initiative, Nielsen nonetheless stood at the White House lectern and delivered a vigorous defense of the measures. The president loved her performance — especially when she said there was no administration policy on separations. Days later, under withering criticism, the president changed his mind and ordered an end to the separations. ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpAvenatti ‘still considering’ presidential run despite domestic violence arrest Mulvaney positioning himself to be Commerce Secretary: report Kasich: Wouldn’t want presidential run to ‘diminish my voice’ MORE is planning to oust Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Kirstjen Michele NielsenMulvaney positioning himself to be Commerce Secretary: report Dem senator expresses concerns over potential Nielsen ouster Trump pushes back on reports of chaos in White House MORE as early as this week, The Washington Post reported on Monday. 
 
 Five current and former White House officials told the Post that Trump is planning to remove Nielsen as soon as possible. 
 
 White House chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE is reportedly fighting the president on the matter, hoping to keep Nielsen in place. Kelly hired Nielsen as his chief of staff while he was Homeland Security secretary and has reportedly defended her for months. 
 
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 Trump has berated Nielsen in public and in private since she was hired, aggressively going after her during Cabinet meetings and mocking her in conversations with other White House officials, the Post reported. 
 
 Nielsen has reportedly told confidants that she is unhappy in the position. Aides told the Post that Trump does not seem to understand the nuances of immigration policy, creating a rift between himself and his Homeland Security secretary when Nielsen tries to explain the challenges posed by some of his proposals. 
 
 Trump has grown frustrated with Nielsen when she reportedly tells him that some of his hard-line proposals, including completely shutting down the border with Mexico, would not be feasible. 
 
 Nielsen's departure would be the latest in a string of high-profile Trump administration exits, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsMulvaney positioning himself to be Commerce Secretary: report Graham: Trump’s new AG has ‘concerns’ about criminal justice bill Kentucky shooting suspect charged with federal hate crimes MORE. Sessions resigned last week at Trump's request. 
 
 Nielsen came under widespread scrutiny over the summer when reports emerged that the administration's so-called zero tolerance policy had resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents at the southern border. Nielsen vigorously defended the policy in public, drawing the targeted ire of immigration activists and top Democratic lawmakers. Some critics called for her immediate resignation. 
 
 Trump later signed an executive order ending the practice amid heavy bipartisan pressure. 
 
 The Democratic Socialists of America’s Washington, D.C., chapter confronted Nielsen while she dined at a Mexican restaurant over the summer, chanting the words "shame" and “end Texas concentration camps." 
 
 The Department of Homeland Security in response said Nielsen shared "concern" over border immigration laws with the demonstrators. 
 
 Updated at 11:07 p.m.
– Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is pushing back against a report that she told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Donald Trump scolded her at a Wednesday cabinet meeting, the AP reports. Nielsen says in a statement that Trump "is rightly frustrated" that his administration has been prevented "from fully securing the border and protecting the American people." She says she shares Trump's frustration. The New York Times reports that the president has grown increasingly angry with Nielsen over what he feels is the country's inability to adequately secure its border. Trump told reporters before the Wednesday meeting about his frustration with immigration, suggesting the anger yet to come. "We’ve very much toughened up the border, but the laws are horrible," he said. "The laws in this country for immigration and illegal immigration are absolutely horrible. And we have to do something about it—not only the wall, which we’re building sections of wall right now." Nielsen later drafted a resignation letter but did not submit it, according to officials who knew about the episode. Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton tweeted that the Times report is "false" and Nielsen was not close to resigning.