Washington, – Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kevin McAleenan, said Sunday that the transfer of immigrants from the border is due to operational needs and capacity, and distorted that they are taken to “sanctuary cities”, so called for protecting undocumented people.
“Our transportation is based on the operational need, on the ability to process (the immigrants) safely, that’s what we’re doing,” McAleenan said during the “Face The Nation” program on CBS.
According to the official, they are “operationally balanced” the attention of people on the southern border.
In this context, he confirmed that they have sent flights with immigrants to California, a state he described as a “sanctuary by law”, which he considered “technically correct.”
And he clarified that it is the liberated immigrants who “are going to take refuge in sanctuary cities, because that is a magnet, they are encouraging people to go and live in those areas.”
Consulted if the immigrants were being transferred specifically to those localities and if his answer was no, McAleenan responded with a “correct” brief.
The declarations of McAleenan met after this week the authorities of Florida and the own governor, the republican Ron DeSantis, they were pronounced against the transfer of undocumented families from the border to Florida, among other destinies of the United States.
On April 12, President Donald Trump confirmed that he is studying “seriously” the possibility of sending undocumented people detained by the authorities to the so-called “sanctuary cities”, towns usually led by Democrats who do not allocate resources to persecute immigrants.
Trump spoke on Twitter hours after The Washington Post reported on that plan and the White House said that idea was ruled out.
The plan, according to the newspaper, would be to transport immigrants in the custody of immigration agencies to cities or sanctuary districts, which choose to protect the undocumented and refuse to inform the federal authorities of the legal status of the persons arrested.
That idea was studied both in November and February, and the White House argued before the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) that its intention was both to alleviate the problem of lack of space in detention centers, and Send a message to the Democrats.
In November, before the arrival of a caravan of Central Americans to the border, the White House proposed in an email to arrest those undocumented at the border and then send them by bus to “small and medium-sized sanctuary cities.”
When the White House insisted on the plan last February, the ICE, in charge of the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants within the country, rejected it as inadequate due to budgetary problems and public image, according to the Post.
Sources from Congress and ICE consulted by the newspaper attributed the insistence on the idea to Stephen Miller, a Trump adviser known for his hardline against immigrants (EFEUSA).
