Acting DHS chief: Biden and Harris 'absolutely' would not enforce immigration laws

by Anna Giaritelli, Homeland Security Reporter | | August 18, 2020 12:09 PM

The Trump administration official overseeing the Department of Homeland Security charged that a Biden administration would not enforce laws passed by Congress that relate to immigration, border, and national security.

"If you look at some of the policies that have been advocated by the former vice president or, as well as his running mate, particularly in the immigration space I think is very concerning," acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told Axios co-founder Mike Allen in an interview. "Our mission at DHS is to enforce the laws as written by Congress, we are the largest ..."

Allen interjected, "You’re saying the Biden administration wouldn’t enforce the law?"

"Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m saying that because what they — what they've asked us to do — the department to do — over three and a half years is to selectively enforce certain laws that have been passed by Congress," Wolf said. "They want a wide variety of discretion on certain laws and not others."

Wolf, the fifth leader of DHS under President Trump, said if Democrats do not like a law, they should change it by using their legislative powers.

"We're not going to be in this business of enforcing some laws and not others. And absolutely I've seen, not only Sen. Harris, but others, have written to the department have asked us under oath to do certain things, to not enforce certain laws passed by Congress," said Wolf. "I'd be concerned about their selective enforcement of certain laws and requirements that DHS has to administer on a daily basis."

One issue the Trump administration has varied in its approach to compared to the Obama administration is the enforcement of immigration laws within the United States. The Democratic president opted to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement target violent criminals who posed the biggest public safety threat and were illegally residing in the U.S., whereas the Trump White House ordered ICE, a DHS agency, to broaden that scope to include nonviolent illegal immigrants.

Wolf said domestic terrorism was a top problem.

“Domestic terrorists have killed more people on U.S. soil than foreign enterprises, so what we're seeing and what we're focused on is really that sort of homegrown violent extremist in any form across the ideological spectrum."

Wolf said the federal government had not linked antifa to any killings as a result of violence or riots across the country. In late May, Trump promised to designate antifa a terrorist organization, just as attacks on federal property and federal agents in Portland, Oregon, were escalating.

Earlier this summer, online petitioners called for the government to designate the Ku Klux Klan a terrorist organization, but no terrorist status exists for violent domestic groups, such as the KKK or antifa.


The outcry for the KKK to be deemed a terrorist organization follows weeks of nationwide protests earlier in the summer for reforms to the criminal justice and law enforcement systems. Wolf said in the Axios interview that systemic racism is “absolutely not” an issue in the country’s police.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...migration-laws