Homeland Security secretary takes responsibility for travel ban’s botched rollout

Reporting from Washington —  President Trump’s top Homeland Security official took responsibility Tuesday for the haphazard rollout of Trump’s restrictions on entry into the U.S., a striking claim because he was largely left out of the crafting of the order.

The confusion surrounding the execution of the order is “all on me,” Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee in his first appearance before Congress since Trump temporarily halted refugees and barred entry for people to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Looking back, Kelly added, “I should have delayed it just a bit” to inform those directly affected by the order as well as members of Congress.

But the writing of the order and planning for its rollout was limited chiefly to a handful of senior White House advisors and agency lawyers, and Kelly found himself in the awkward position of defending the execution of a directive he didn’t see until the week it was issued and wasn’t told was coming until the day before it was signed.

“The thinking was to get it out quick so that people trying to come here to harm us could not take advantage of a period of time to jump on an airplane,” he said.

The White House has been heavily criticized not only for the chaos at airports that ensued after the ban was implemented but also because lawmakers and policy experts were left out of crafting the directive.

Lawmakers of both parties condemned the White House over the temporary ban’s implementation.

The White House officials who directed the rollout, including senior aides Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller, should be in front of the committee to “answer for this debacle,” said the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi.

It is “somewhat unfair” that Kelly is being called on to defend the order “that, by most accounts, he was required to implement with almost no notice,” Thompson said.

Even the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who advised Trump on the travel restrictions late last year and defended the president’s decision to implement them, criticized how the order was carried out.

“The rollout of this executive order has been problematic. It has caused confusion here in Congress, across the country and around the world. It caused real problems” for lawful green card holders in the air when the order was signed, McCaul said.

But McCaul was adamant the order didn’t target a religious group. “This is not a Muslim ban, and even the suggestion that it is will alienate our allies and embolden” terrorists, McCaul said.

Civil liberties advocates and Democrats have criticized the orders for unfairly targeting Muslims, pointing to Trump’s repeated calls during the campaign to block Muslims from the U.S.

Former senior national security leaders said the restrictions could increase the risk to the U.S. playing into terrorist propaganda and by alienating allies helping fight terror groups.

“The urgent border security crisis facing our nation is not occurring at our southern border, but rather is one of President Trump’s own making,” Thompson said.

The travel ban, he added, was “unconstitutional” and makes the country “less safe” by serving as a recruitment and propaganda tool for terrorist groups and straining relationships with allies working with U.S. counterterrorism units.

Travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries targeted by Trump’s temporary ban — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen — have hurried to board flights to the U.S. during what might be a brief window to enter the country while challenges to the president’s order are heard in federal appeals court.

A lawsuit attempting to overturn Trump’s travel ban appears to be on the fast track to the Supreme Court; judges on the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled arguments for Tuesday.