Report: DHS Career Employees Got ‘Emotional’ When Sessions Announced End to DACA

Career employees at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) got “emotional” when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on behalf of President Trump’s administration that an Obama-created temporary amnesty program for illegal aliens would ultimately end, according to a source at the agency.

A source at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency within DHS, told CNN of the reaction to Sessions’ announcement last month that Trump would keep his promise to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gives work permits to 800,000 illegal aliens, by career employees at the agency:

While political appointees and career officials are not described as butting heads, some of policy ideas do end up moderated by career employees on practical grounds. One source also described some employees of USCIS, which administers DACA, as getting emotional when the plan was made to end the program.

“Once it gets to a senior level, there are pretty robust discussions,” another source familiar said. “And once it gets to that level there are folks with ideas, and then folks who have been around for a while who say, ‘That won’t work.'”

Sources inside DHS also revealed how leakers at the federal agency with strong political views will shop around potential policy changes to mainstream media outlets before the ideas have even been brought before agency heads.

“Those competing ideas are then ultimately decided on by the secretary and high-level decision makers, though sources say political appointees are sometimes in a position to have influence over what information flows to the front office and top officials,” the CNN report stated.

DHS is not the only agency to be staffed with career employees who oppose Trump’s “America First” immigration plans.

Breitbart Texas Editor-in-Chief Brandon Darby previously reported how Trump’s Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan worked under President Obama and administered the “release of tens of thousands of criminal illegal aliens into the U.S.”