Homeland Security Morale Has 'Skyrocketed' Under Trump
Thursday, February 2, 2017 08:27 AM
By: Joe Crowe
Job satisfaction is on the upswing at the Department of Homeland Security, employees and one senior administration official told the Washington Examiner.
"I have directed departmental leadership to implement the president's executive orders professionally, humanely, and in accordance with the law," the DHS Secretary and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly said Tuesday at a press conference, according to Politico.
Officials told the Examiner that Kelly's speech had positive effects.
"I'm convinced that morale has just skyrocketed in the last 10 days… They're all breathing a sigh of relief and realizing that now they can actually get to work and… execute the oath that they took to this nation," one official told the Examiner.
Kelly's remarks "re-energized a lot of us because for so long we've been vilified for doing our jobs, and here was someone finally standing up for us," one Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent said to the Examiner.
A senior official told the Examiner a Customers and Border Protection officer told Kelly: "Mr. Secretary, we haven't had anybody at your level say a kind word about our officers for more than five years."
"We spent eight years handcuffed by the previous administration," Joshua Wilson, a spokesman for the San Diego chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, told the Examiner.
Border agents did not feel supported by the previous administration, Wilson said. "Morale is certainly on the upswing," he added.
Wilson credited Kelly's "stellar resume of leadership" and "he is also committed to enforcing the policies of this administration and laws that were on the books long before President Trump entered office."
One source at the department told the Examiner that President Donald Trump should also get some credit for the boost.
"Agents haven't been allowed to do their jobs. That's going to change," Trump said during a visit to DHS headquarters, the Examiner reported.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Hom.../02/id/771623/