PERSPECTIVE: DHS futureDHS’s Changing Mission Leaves Its Founders Dismayed as Critics Call for a Breakup
The Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn its officers from the front lines of the protests in Portland, Oregon, but Nick Miroff writes that the backlash that President Trump’s intervention in the city triggered — and the lead role DHS has played in his presidency — could prove far more lasting. DHS, created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to respond to national traumas, carefully projecting a staid, strait-laced image. It grew exponentially larger and more powerful on the strength of broad bipartisan support, but Miroff says that nearly two decades later, Trump has changed that. “It was the president’s use of force in Portland last month that appeared to cross a line for DHS founders, who cringed at the department turning its powers inward against Americans,” Miroff writes. “The president has perverted the mission of DHS,” said Tom Ridge, who served as DHS first secretary under President George W. Bush.
The Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn its officers from the front lines of the protests in Portland, Oregon, but Nick Miroff writes in the Washington Post that the backlash that President Trump’s intervention in the city triggered — and the lead role DHS has played in his presidency — could prove far more lasting.
Miroff notes that DHS, created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, had become a symbol of the government’s response to the national trauma, carefully projecting a staid, strait-laced image. It grew exponentially larger and more powerful on the strength of broad bipartisan support.
Miroff adds:
Nearly two decades later, Trump has changed that.
The president took office with immigration enforcement plans that placed DHS at the forefront of his domestic agenda. In the three and a half years since, the White House has run the department as an instrument of policy and politics, appointing openly partisan figures to its top leadership ranks where they serve in acting roles without the slightest pretense of a formal nomination.
Trump has demonstrated little interest in DHS beyond its monthly report of immigration arrests and the pace of construction on his border wall project, DHS official say.
It was the president’s use of force in Portland last month that appeared to cross a line for DHS founders, who cringed at the department turning its powers inward against Americans.
“I wasn’t just disappointed — I was angry,” Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who served as the department’s first secretary under President George W. Bush, said in an interview. “The president has perverted the mission of DHS.”
“Creating the perception that the department is a political arm of the president is an abuse I never thought I’d see,” Ridge said.
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The White House has displayed an unprecedented disregard for the norms of the confirmation process, leaving senior positions vacant for years despite Republican control of the Senate.
In the absence of department leaders who could earn Senate confirmation, Trump has filled key positions with partisan figures who earned their jobs by praising the president on television, including acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner Mark Morgan, and Ken Cuccinelli, whose title is senior official performing the duties of the deputy secretary.
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The department’s shift toward immigration enforcement was changing perceptions of DHS even before Portland, and that needs to recalibrate, said co-author Caitlin Durkovich, a former DHS official who worked on infrastructure defense.
“If there are actions that seem to be coming from place of partisanship, it’s going to impact and diminish the trust that has long governed and underpinned how the department is supposed to work,” Durkovich said.
