President Trump announced Sunday that Kirstjen Nielsen has resigned as secretary of homeland security, marking the exit of a second top immigration official in a matter of days as the White House continues to grapple with an influx of migrants on the southern border.

Replacing her on an acting basis will be Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Trump said Sunday. The announcement on Twitter came shortly after Trump and Nielsen met at the White House, according to two senior administration officials.

“Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service,” Trump tweeted Sunday evening. “I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!”

[Read Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation letter]

The meeting between Trump and Nielsen was not disclosed on the president’s public schedule, and it came three days after the White House abruptly yanked the nomination of Ronald Vitiello, who had been picked as Trump’s director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The president later signaled that he wants the nation to go “in a tougher direction” on immigration.

In her resignation letter to Trump, Nielsen said it was the “right time for me to step aside,” despite what she described as “progress in reforming homeland security for a new age.”

“I hope that the next Secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse,” Nielsen wrote in the two-page letter. “Our country — and the men and women of DHS — deserve to have all the tools and resources they need to execute the mission entrusted to them.”

In a tweet late Sunday, Nielsen said, “I have agreed to stay on as Secretary through Wednesday, April 10th to assist with an orderly transition and ensure that key DHS missions are not impacted.”

Two senior administration officials said that Nielsen had no intention of quitting when she went to the meeting Sunday with the president and that she was forced to step down. The announcement of her departure came shortly after the meeting.

Trump told aides last fall that he wanted to fire Nielsen, and he grew increasingly agitated as a large caravan of Central American migrants reached the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego. She appeared to regain her footing after U.S. Border Patrol agents used tear gas to repel a large crowd attempting to break through a border fence — the kind of “tough” action Trump said he wanted in a DHS secretary.

Nielsen’s job security improved again after she helped persuade Mexican officials to agree to an experimental policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, which require asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases work their way through the U.S. court system. That policy began in January.

Nielsen issued a memo last week ordering a rapid expansion of the program in an attempt to deter the record number of families who continue to arrive each month. Trump has alleged that those who are seeking asylum are scamming the United States and taking advantage of asylum laws to enter the country.

The president grew frustrated with Nielsen again early this year as the number of migrants rose and as she raised legal concerns about some of Trump’s more severe impulses, particularly when his demands clashed with U.S. immigration laws and federal court orders. Nielsen also disagreed with the White House’s decision to dump Vitiello, who had been on track for Senate confirmation in coming weeks.

Trump also was unhappy that Nielsen had been in London last week ahead of meetings with Group of 7 security officials in Paris, according to two people familiar with the matter. Nielsen returned early from Europe and was with Trump in California as he toured the border on Friday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Nielsen convened calls with other Cabinet members and White House aides, asking them to help at the border and saying she would be giving specific requests to officials, aides said.

She said there would be daily calls — which surprised other Cabinet officials — and emphasized the need to make immediate progress.

White House officials said there was a conspicuous lack of praise for Nielsen at Friday’s roundtable, which presaged her professional demise.

Among those pushing the president to remove Nielsen was national security adviser John Bolton, who repeatedly told the president he did not think she was the right fit for the job, a senior administration official said.

Nielsen’s removal — and the withdrawal of Vitiello’s nomination — also show the growing sway of senior adviser Stephen Miller, who has privately derided other officials to the president for not being tough enough and who shares the president’s hard-line impulses. In a recent Oval Office meeting, Trump told advisers that Miller would be in charge of all immigration initiatives, White House aides said.

The housecleaning blindsided Democrats, who have intensified their criticism of Nielsen and her deputies, particularly after she and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided to prosecute all adults crossing the border illegally, even though it meant separating parents from their children.





Democrats had no sympathy for Nielsen in her departure. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (Miss.) said Nielsen’s 16-month tenure was a “disaster from the start.”

“When even the most radical voices in the administration aren’t radical enough for President Trump, you know he’s completely lost touch with the American people,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Nielsen’s departure puts another key official in an acting position in Trump’s Cabinet. He has interim secretaries at the departments of Defense, Interior and Homeland Security, as well as an acting leader at the Office of Management and Budget.

An acting administrator will lead the Small Business Administration once Linda McMahon officially leaves her post Friday. Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, also serves in that role on an acting basis.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, did not directly refer to Nielsen in a statement about her exit, but he emphasized that “we have a crisis at our southwest border.”

“We need steady, informed and effective leadership in the administration and in Congress to have any hope of fixing our out-of-control border security and immigration problems,” Johnson said Sunday evening.

Ken Cuccinelli II, a former Virginia attorney general, is under consideration as Nielsen’s permanent replacement and has been at the White House recently, according to two Republicans involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Another potential nominee is Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who is seen as the most likely to be easily confirmed. Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state and a prominent immigration hard-liner, has been floated in the past for the job but is more likely to be involved in the administration as an adviser not subject to Senate confirmation.



Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in El Paso last month, will replace Nielsen on an acting basis. (Sergio Flores for The Washington Post)

Many at DHS have expressed astonishment in recent months that Nielsen was able to hang on as long as she did. Her nomination to lead the mega-bureaucracy, with 240,000 employees and a $50 billion budget, was a surprise from the start.

Nielsen, 46, was a DHS staffer and adviser during the administration of George W. Bush. She left government and remade herself as a cybersecurity expert, then returned to DHS in early 2017 as chief of staff to John F. Kelly, Trump’s first homeland security secretary. As her doubters noted at the time, Nielsen had never run a large organization.

Tensions with the White House came almost immediately after her Senate confirmation in December 2017.

The president boasted that his election win and promises to crack down on illegal immigration had pushed border crossings to their lowest level in half a century. But when that trend reversed and illegal crossings began climbing again, Trump erupted at his DHS secretary, frustrated at the setback to his self-styled image as a border-wall-building hard-liner.

Trump began chastising Nielsen in front of other staff, and he berated her extensively during one particularly awkward Cabinet meeting last May that left White House aides squirming in their chairs, according to officials in attendance.

Nielsen remained in her role and worked to regain the president’s favor, especially during a combative news conference at the height of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 2,500 migrant children from their parents.

McAleenan, a career CBP official who was confirmed as commissioner in 2017 by a wide margin, will now be responsible for the nation’s border security and immigration system, the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service. DHS is the third-largest Cabinet agency, after Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department.

McAleenan is generally well-liked by leaders in both parties and is viewed as a neutral, technocratic law enforcement official, rather than an immigration hawk. He has traveled to the border frequently in recent months to draw attention to the growing strains on U.S. agents and infrastructure, while also speaking directly with asylum-seeking families from Central America about their reasons for leaving home.



Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen waits for President Trump on Friday in El Centro, Calif., where he discussed border issues. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

A Los Angeles native with a law degree from the University of Chicago, he is an expert in trade and regulatory affairs. McAleenan has never worked as a Border Patrol agent, but he rose to the upper ranks of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during Barack Obama’s administration, and he received a 2015 Presidential Rank Award, the country’s highest civil service prize.

McAleenan late last month was blunt about the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that the immigration enforcement system was at “the breaking point,” straining almost every aspect of U.S. operations there. Speaking in El Paso, McAleenan noted that crossings have been overwhelmed with hundreds of migrants seeking asylum daily, that Border Patrol stations have no room for detainees and that the immigration courts are backed up with hundreds of thousands of cases.

“That breaking point has arrived this week,” McAleenan said March 27, a day after the agency detained more than 4,100 migrants, the highest one-day total at the border in more than a decade.

[U.S. has hit ‘breaking point’ at border amid immigration surge, Customs and Border Protection chief says]

A DHS official said McAleenan is a well-timed pick to engage Democrats as the Trump administration clamors for more money for border enforcement. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said McAleenan could engage Democrats “a lot more effectively” than Nielsen because of his deeper understanding of the issues unfolding on the border.

John Sandweg, a former acting director of ICE under Obama and a top aide to then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, said McAleenan is a quality leader who will do “an incredible job.”

“McAleenan is a very smart guy and very competent. He’s enforcement-focused but not an ideological figure,” Sandweg said. “This administration likes tough-talking, sound-bite guys, and that’s not Kevin. He’s not a big loud talker, or the kind of guy who will say outrageous things to sound tough.”

A ‘Conveyor Belt’ to the U.S. border View Graphic ANTELOPE WELLS, NEW MEXICO - FEBRUARY 20: A Border Patrol agent uses Recon infrared binoculars to look for smugglers and groups of migrants approaching the border from his truck on the San Luis Pass road in the Diamond A Ranch in Antelope Wells, New Mexico on February 20, 2019. (Photo by Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

McAleenan drew immediate criticism Sunday, with Ronald Newman, political director of the American Civil Liberties Union, saying he aided Nielsen in carrying out “a sad and shameful chapter in the agency’s history,” including efforts to build a “pointless” border wall and the separation of migrant families last year.

“He has been key in implementing Trump and Nielsen’s unconscionable policies and has overseen countless of Border Patrol’s abuses,” Newman said.

During the past week, Trump has grappled with a response to the surge of migrants at the border, most notably by threatening to close off the U.S.-Mexico border but backing off within days after pleas from business leaders and Republican lawmakers, warning that a border closure could be devastating to the economy.

Trump toured the border in Calexico, Calif., on Friday and spoke at a roundtable with border and immigration officials to make a case to the public and Congress for tougher enforcement policies. Nielsen joined him on that trip and appeared at the roundtable.

Apprehensions at the southern border soared in March, to nearly 100,000 arrests compared with 58,000 in January, according to the DHS. Much of the surge is attributable to Central American families who are seeking asylum in the United States.

Robert Costa and Damian Paletta contributed to this report.</s>(CNN) -- Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of Homeland Security who has become a face of President Donald Trump's hardline immigration push, is leaving the administration, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Sunday afternoon.

"Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service," Trump said on Twitter.

"I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!" Trump continued.

McAleenan is a holdover from the Obama administration. He was sworn in on March 20, 2018, as commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection.

Senior administration officials told CNN that Nielsen had a 5 p.m., meeting at the White House with Trump where she was planning to discuss with him the immigration and border issues and a path forward. She had no intention of resigning, according to one of the sources, but rather was going there with an agenda.

The source notes Trump's frustration with the current asylum laws, and his desire for individuals who work for the administration to just stop Central American asylum seekers from entering the United States, contrary to the law.

"I hereby resign from the position of Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), effective April 7th 2018 (sic)," Nielsen wrote in her resignation letter. "Despite our progress in reforming homeland security for a new age, I have determined that it is the right time for me to step aside. "

Nielsen has felt "in limbo" for the last week, a person close to her says, as she bore the brunt of the President's anger over the border.

She's been increasingly on thin ice in the eyes of the President. She did not realize how dire it was when she left the US last weekend, but quickly did, as she abruptly returned.

She did interviews -- including on CNN -- to try and improve the President's souring view of her, the source close to Nielsen said, but to little avail.

"Nothing she could do or say could change how the President started viewing her," the source close to Nielsen said.

That said, she was prepared to be fired at any moment, but did not know going into Sunday's meeting it would be imminent.

The departure comes just days after Trump suddenly withdrew the nomination of Ron Vitiello for Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, blindsiding the Department of Homeland Security and the Hill. Nielsen was unaware what was happening until after the nomination had been pulled, a person familiar with the news said. The announcement Sunday also follows plans to cut aid to some Central American countries, marking a sudden reversal after Nielsen had days earlier visited Honduras to sign a regional compact agreement with Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Nielsen has had a tumultuous tenure that saw Trump steadily ramping up pressure on his team to execute his immigration promises, which he believes is the single driving issue for his base of political supporters.

Trump has vented privately that Nielsen hasn't adequately secured the border or enacted stricter immigration rules, even as she became the face of policies that administration critics called heartless and illegal.

In recent weeks, administration officials have been sounding the alarm over the increase in migrants at the southern border, underscoring the change in demographics as one of the reasons for the host of challenges they're facing. McAleenan said late last month that the US was on pace to encounter more than 100,000 migrants in March alone, making it "the highest month since 2008."

"Right now, we have an emergency on our hands. We need to treat it as such," Nielsen told Chris Cuomo on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" Thursday. Nielsen, who served in President George W. Bush's administration, never overcame internal skepticism about her allegiance to Trump. She joined the administration as chief of staff to John Kelly, who was Trump's first Homeland Security secretary.

When Kelly moved to the West Wing as chief of staff, Nielsen followed, becoming a deputy chief of staff tasked with helping Kelly bring rigor to a freewheeling staff.

The role didn't gain her popularity, but it helped her gain enough of Trump's trust to elevate her to the Cabinet post.

But at the agency that oversees border protection and immigration matters -- Trump's signature issue -- it was inevitable Nielsen would find herself in the President's crosshairs.

After a previous Cabinet meeting during which Trump berated her for not acting strongly enough on preventing illegal immigration, Nielsen considered resigning, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

She didn't then, and went on to become one of the public faces of a controversial policy that separated families at the southern border.</s>WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will leave her position, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Sunday Nielsen resigned, two people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. She went into a meeting with Trump at the White House in Sunday not knowing whether she'd be fired or would resign, and she ended up resigning, they said.Sources said she has been frustrated by difficulty getting other departments to help with the growing number of families coming crossing the border.Trump thanked Nielsen for her service and named Kevin McAleenan as the acting homeland security secretary."I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!" Trump said. McAleenan is a longtime border official who is well-respected by members of Congress and within the administration. The decision to name an immigration officer to the post reflects Trump's priority for a sprawling department founded to combat terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.Nielsen had been on the chopping block before. Trump threatened to fire her and she previously considered resigning, but officials at the time recognized there were no obvious successors in place.Trump nominated Nielsen to lead the Department of Homeland Security in October 2017, and she was sworn in weeks later. She previously served at the Department of Homeland Security as the chief of staff for John Kelly before he left to become the White House chief of staff. She followed him to the White House, where she worked as an assistant to the president and the principal deputy chief of staff.Before Nielsen's work for the current administration, she consulted on homeland security and preparedness matters, according to her biography on the website for George Washington University's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, where she was a senior fellow.</s>Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday after mounting frustration by President Donald Trump over his administration's failure to stop the flow of migrants into the country.

Trump announced the resignation on Twitter, and Nielsen issued a resignation letter a few minutes later.

Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, will become acting secretary pending confirmation of Nielsen's successor, Trump said.

As recently as last week, Nielsen was busily announcing plans to reassign hundreds of Customs and Border Protection agents to the southern border to "address the influx of migrants" in certain areas.

But Nielsen, 46, has suffered from tepid support within the administration, taking public responsibility for Trump's deeply divisive anti-immigration policies.

Nielsen said in her resignation letter that she was proud of her tenure at Homeland Secretary, asserting that "our homeland is safer today than when I joined the administration."

But "I hope that the next secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws that have impeded our ability to fully secure America's borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation's discourse," she said.

Her departure comes just two days after she and Trump visited the U.S. border with Mexico and three days after the president withdrew his nomination of Ronald Vitiello to be the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The president was frustrated with Nielsen's tenure as secretary and accepted her resignation after a meeting at the White House on Sunday night, according to two people familiar with the matter, one of them a senior U.S. official and the other a person who is close to Nielsen.

The frustration, which had been mounting for weeks, was mutual, according to the person close to Nielsen. Their poor relationship was exacerbated by Trump's failure to consult with her on his decision to withdraw Vitiello's nomination, according to the person.

The president gave Nielsen the opportunity to resign, but he clearly wanted her to leave, according to a third person familiar with the matter.

Before the announcement, Fox News' anchors had persistently called for her resignation, claiming that she was ineffective and needed to leave.

She has also faced fierce criticism from within and outside the department, which is the subject of numerous House subpoenas and more than 20 investigations by the agency's own inspector general.

"Hampered by misstep after misstep, Kirstjen Nielsen's tenure at the Department of Homeland Security was a disaster from the start," Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement.

"It is clearer now than ever that the Trump administration's border security and immigration policies — that she enacted and helped craft — have been an abysmal failure and have helped create the humanitarian crisis at the border," he said.

But Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the committee's ranking Republican, said Nielsen "served her country honorably as homeland security secretary despite facing numerous challenges including dire conditions at our southwest border."

Nielsen has run Homeland Security, the federal government's third-largest department, without a deputy ever since she succeeded John Kelly as secretary in December 2017 after Kelly became White House chief of staff.

Trump has expressed his frustration with the situation on the border for months, at times threatening to shut down all points of entry with Mexico and demanding that both the Mexican government and Congress do more to solve with the president persistently calls a "crisis."

"The system is full. We can't take you anymore," Trump said at a roundtable event with law enforcement officials and local leaders at a border patrol station in Calexico on Friday. "Our country is full. ... Turn around."

"When it's full, there's nothing you can do. You have to say, 'I'm sorry, we can't take you,'" he said.

McAleenan, who was confirmed as head of CBP in March 2018, was deputy commissioner of the bureau, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, during President Barack Obama's administration.

His confirmation to head CBP was delayed for more than three months as allegations emerged that anonymous accusers had alleged that McAleenan had an affair with a subordinate and bypassed proper channels to fund an immigration detention center. DHS' inspector general cleared him of wrongdoing at the time.

CBP came under investigation by the House Homeland Security Committee last month after NBC News and NBC San Diego reported that it had compiled a list of 59 reporters, lawyers and activists, most of them U.S. citizens, who were to be stopped for questioning crossing the U.S.-Mexican border at San Diego-area checkpoints. At least 21 of them have been stopped and questioned or arrested.

"CBP does not target journalists for inspection based on their occupation or their reporting," the agency responded. "CBP has policies in place that prohibit discrimination against arriving travelers and has specific provisions regarding encounters with journalists."

"Commissioner McAleenan will have his work cut out for him," Rogers said. But "I am confident the department is in capable hands."</s>Colleen Long and Zeke Miller, The Associated Press 

 



WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday amid the administration's growing frustration and bitterness over the number of Central American families crossing the southern border, two people familiar with the decision said.

U.S. President Donald Trump thanked her for her work in a tweet and announced U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would be taking over as acting head of the department. McAleenan is a longtime border official who is well-respected by members of Congress and within the administration. The decision to name an immigration officer to the post reflects Trump's priority for a sprawling department founded to combat terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though Trump aides were eyeing a staff shake-up at Homeland Security and had already withdrawn the nomination for another key immigration post, the development Sunday was unexpected.

Nielsen travelled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday with Trump to participate in a roundtable with border officers and local law enforcement. There she echoed Trump's comments on the situation at the border, though she ducked out of the room without explanation for some time while Trump spoke. As they toured a section of newly rebuilt barriers, Nielsen was at Trump's side, introducing him to local officials. She returned to Washington afterward on a Coast Guard Gulfstream, as Trump continued on a fundraising trip to California and Nevada.

But privately, she had grown increasingly frustrated by what she saw as a lack of support from other departments and increased meddling by Trump aides, the people said. She went into a meeting with Trump at the White House in Sunday not knowing whether she'd be fired or would resign, and she ended up resigning, they said.

Her resignation later, obtained by The Associated Press, had not a whiff of controversy unlike others who have left from the administration.

"Despite our progress in reforming homeland security for a new age, I have determined that it is the right time for me to step aside," she wrote. "I hope that the next secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America's borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation's discourse."

There have been persistent tensions between the White House and Nielsen almost from the moment she became secretary, after her predecessor, John Kelly, became the White House chief of staff in 2017. Nielsen was viewed as resistant to some of the harshest immigration measures supported by the president and his aides, particularly senior adviser Stephen Miller, both on matters around the border and others like protected status for some refugees. Once Kelly left the White House last year, Nielsen's days appeared to be numbered. She had expected to be pushed out last November, but her exit never materialized. And during the government shutdown over Trump's insistence for funding for a border wall, Nielsen's stock inside the White House even appeared to rise.

But in recent weeks, as a new wave of migration has taxed resources along the border and as Trump sought to regain control of the issue for his 2020 re-election campaign, tensions flared anew.

Arrests all along the southern border have skyrocketed in recent months. Border agents are on track to make 100,000 arrests and denials of entry at the southern border this month, over half of which are families with children.

Nielsen advocated for strong cybersecurity defence and often said she believed the next major terror attack would occur online -- not by planes or bombs. She was tasked with helping states secure elections following Russian interference during the 2016 election.

She dutifully pushed Trump's immigration policies, including funding for his border wall, and defended the administration's practice of separating children from parents, telling a Senate committee that removing children from parents facing criminal charges happens "in the United States every day." But she was also instrumental in ending the policy.

Under Nielsen, migrants seeking asylum are waiting in Mexico as their cases progress. She also moved to abandon longstanding regulations that dictate how long children are allowed to be held in immigration detention, and requested bed space from the U.S. military for some 12,000 people in an effort to detain all families who cross the border. Right now there is space for about 3,000 families and facilities are at capacity.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who oversaw President Donald Trump’s bitterly contested immigration policies during her tumultuous 16-month tenure, resigned on Sunday amid a surge in the number of migrants at the border with Mexico.

A senior administration official said Trump asked for Nielsen’s resignation and she gave it.

Trump, who has recently expressed growing anger about the situation at the border, said on Twitter: “Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service.”

In another tweet, Trump said Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, would become acting DHS secretary.

Nielsen’s departure was first reported by CBS News.

Nielsen, 46, had been DHS secretary since December 2017.

Her departure had been repeatedly rumored over the past year, particularly after a wave of anger over the administration’s 2018 family separation policy at the border with Mexico and most recently as U.S. border officials estimated that 100,000 migrants were apprehended at the southern border in March, the highest level in a decade.

Another senior administration official said Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, after a blowup with Nielsen late last year, also recommended to Trump that she should go.

Trump has made a clampdown on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his two-year-old presidency, leading chants of “Build that wall” at his rallies as he has sought to cut back on the number of newcomers entering the United States without proper documentation.

Many of the migrants picked up last month were Central Americans seeking U.S. asylum.

Trump was so frustrated about the increase that he announced he would cut off U.S. aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. He also threatened to close the border with Mexico, although he later backed off that proposal with a threat to impose tariffs on auto imports.

In her resignation letter, Nielsen asked for more from Congress and the courts, which have opposed such Trump administration initiatives as his effort to limit immigration from Muslim nations and the border wall.

“I hope that the next Secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse,” she wrote to Trump.

Trump also took aim at Congress in another tweet later on Sunday, saying: “Country is FULL,” and saying Democrats in Congress must “fix loopholes” and repeating his threats to close the border or impose tariffs if Mexico does not do more.

Nielsen’s resignation was the latest high-profile departure from the Trump administration, and leaves just four women in his Cabinet. Among others, Trump currently lacks a permanent secretary of defense or chief of staff.

Nielsen’s departure was announced two days after the Republican president abruptly said on Friday he was dumping his nominee to be the top official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ronald Vitiello, saying he wanted someone “tougher.”

ICE is under the jurisdiction of DHS, which was formed following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Repeatedly subjected to tough questioning by Democrats at congressional hearings, Nielsen became a lightning rod for criticism of Trump’s policies. She was confronted by protesters last year at a Mexican restaurant in Washington.

Last year, Nielsen came under increasing pressure by critics to step aside after the Trump administration adopted the policy of separating migrant children from their parents as part of its “zero tolerance” approach intended to deter families from leaving home in the hope of entering the United States.

After criticism as pictures of children in cages were spread across the world, Trump signed an executive order in June ending family separations and requiring that families be held together in federal custody while the adults awaited prosecution for illegally crossing the border.

But the government reported that at least 245 children were taken from their families between that time and the first months of 2019.

Trump insists that the arrival of immigrants across the southern U.S. border constitutes a national emergency so important that he sidestepped Congress’ refusal to provide him with billions of dollars he requested to build the border wall.

Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said Nielsen’s tenure at DHS “was a disaster from the start.”

He said in a statement, however, that she should not serve as a scapegoat, blasting Trump for “terrible and cruel policies.” Noting that the department now has neither a permanent secretary nor deputy secretary, Thompson called on the administration to work with Congress “in good faith.”

Before she was nominated as secretary, Nielsen worked as a deputy to former Marine General John Kelly, who headed DHS before becoming White House chief of staff.

Kelly resigned as chief of staff on Jan. 2 amid reports of a strained relationship with Trump.</s>Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday amid the administration's growing frustration and bitterness over the number of Central American families crossing the southern border, two people familiar with the decision said.

President Donald Trump thanked her for her work in a tweet and announced U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would be taking over as acting head of the department. McAleenan is a longtime border official who is well-respected by members of Congress and within the administration. The decision to name an immigration officer to the post reflects Trump's priority for a sprawling department founded to combat terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though Trump aides were eyeing a staff shake-up at Homeland Security and had already withdrawn the nomination for another key immigration post, the development Sunday was unexpected.

Nielsen traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday with Trump to participate in a roundtable with border officers and local law enforcement. There she echoed Trump's comments on the situation at the border, though she ducked out of the room without explanation for some time while Trump spoke. As they toured a section of newly rebuilt barriers, Nielsen was at Trump's side, introducing him to local officials. She returned to Washington afterward on a Coast Guard Gulfstream, as Trump continued on a fundraising trip to California and Nevada.

But privately, she had grown increasingly frustrated by what she saw as a lack of support from other departments and increased meddling by Trump aides, the people said. She went into a meeting with Trump at the White House in Sunday not knowing whether she'd be fired or would resign, and she ended up resigning, they said.

There have been persistent tensions between the White House and Nielsen almost from the moment she became secretary, after her predecessor John Kelly became the White House chief of staff in 2017. Nielsen was viewed as resistant to some of the harshest immigration measures supported by the president and his aides, particularly senior adviser Stephen Miller, both around the border and on other matters like protected status for some refugees. Once Kelly left the White House last year, Nielsen's days appeared to be numbered. She had expected to be pushed out last November, but her exit never materialized. And during the government shutdown over Trump's push for funding for a border wall, Nielsen's stock inside the White House even appeared to rise.

But in recent weeks, as a new wave of migration has taxed resources along the border and as Trump sought to regain control of the issue for his 2020 re-election campaign, tensions flared anew.</s>Kirsten Nielsen, the embattled homeland security secretary who over the past year has acted as the public face of some of the Trump administration’s most contentious policies, has resigned.

According to CBS News, which first reported the news, Nielsen’s departure was yet another victory for Stephen Miller, the far-right senior adviser in the White House who has consistently steered the president in a hardline direction on immigration.

In a tweet on Sunday, Donald Trump sad: “Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service.

“I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!”

Nielsen’s position had been rocky for some time. In November, leaks from the White House suggested she would be out by the end of the year as Trump fulminated against what he complained was her weak performance.

But in the end she managed to hang on for a little more than a year, having taken up the job in December 2017.

In that time she had to defend several of Trump’s most controversial policies, including his increasingly eccentric demands for a border wall and last summer’s family separations at the border which led to accusations of cruelty around the world.

McAleenan last week he made a dramatic intervention in the public debate about the surge in Central American asylum seekers at the southern border with Mexico, saying the system had reached “breaking point”.

Nielsen accompanied Trump to the border on Friday.

“There is indeed an emergency on our southern border,” Trump said then, in California. “It’s a colossal surge, and it’s overwhelming our immigration system. We can’t take you any more. Our country is full.”</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is leaving her job amid growing frustration by the administration over the number of southern border crossings.

Trump said in a tweet on Sunday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will become the acting head of the sprawling department of 240,000 people. McAleenan is a longtime border officer, reflecting Trump's priority for the department initially founded to combat terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Two people familiar with the matter said Nielsen went to the White House to speak with Trump on Sunday following their trip to the border. The people say she has long been frustrated by the difficulty getting other departments to help with the growing number of families coming crossing the border.</s>US President Donald Trump announced in a tweet on Sunday that Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position.

Trump also added in another tweet that Kevin McAleenan, the current US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for the US Department of Homeland Security.

Earlier, CBS News reported that Nielsen was expected to submit her resignation to President Trump, citing two unnamed officials, Reuters reported.

Nielsen, 46, has held the position since December 2017.

She leads a sprawling department responsible for carrying out some of Trump’s most contentious policies, such as his plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico and the separation of migrant children from their families.
U.S. President Donald Trump announces that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is leaving the administration. Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan will serve in her stead until a new secretary is confirmed by Congress.