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Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly accepted responsibility for the widespread confusion surrounding President Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Though Kelly did not see the travel ban until days before its rollout the top security officials said the hasty implementation in airports across the country was on his shoulders, even as he insisted that refugees, families and legal permanent U.S. residents temporarily barred from entering the country were treated humanely.
“Lesson learned,” Kelly testified before the House Homeland Security Committee Tuesday. “I should have slowed it down by a day or two.”
Kelly made his comments as arguments on whether to reinstate President Trump’s travel restrictions loom this afternoon in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A U.S. district judge suspended Trump’s ban on travelers from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Kelly also answered questions about drug trafficking and human smuggling, and plans for building a wall across the Southwest border. Kelly visited the Rio Grande Valley last week.
“We’re not going to be able to build a wall every where all at once,” Kelly said. After visiting the Rio Grande Valley a week ago, Kelly said border agents told him that a wall in strategic areas is necessary. “They very definitely said, ‘yes sir, we need a physical barrier backed up by people like us’.”
anelsen@express-news.net
Twitter: @amnelsen
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