DHS Chief to Lawmakers: 'If You Don’t Like the Immigration Laws... Change the Law'

WASHINGTON D.C. — U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly defended President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts, reminding American lawmakers that, if they do not like the laws on the books, they have the power to change them.

Illegal immigration has dropped by an estimated 70 percent under the Trump administration.

Yet, Democratic members of the GOP-controlled Congress have repeatedly blasted the DHS for enforcing immigration laws.

During an event hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank, the DHS chief said it is his responsibility to enforce the immigration laws on the books, noting, “I don’t make them.”

He attributed the drop in illegal immigration to the Trump administration’s willingness to follow the law, later adding, “We’re not doing anything different than the [former President Barack] Obama administration did, except we are executing, enforcing laws across the spectrum in terms of immigration.”

Kelly said his department is enforcing immigration laws “humanely” and with “dignity for those that we apprehend.”

“I’m very quick to point out to members of Congress — if you don’t like the law, immigration laws, then do your duty and change the law. I have no choice but to carry out the law,” declared the retired Marine general.

“I can’t carry out all the laws across the spectrum, so we do have priorities within the execution of those laws, but if you don’t like the laws change them,” he stressed.

Kelly noted that the Trump administration plans to devote funds to increasing economic opportunities in Central America to give potential illegal migrants “a reason to stay home.”

“They don’t want to come here. In their view, they have to come here. Their families are in Central America. Their communities are in Central America. That’s where they go to church. That’s where their friends are,” noted Kelly.

“If we can improve the conditions — the lot in life of Hondurans, Guatemalans, Central Americans — we can do an awful lot to protect the southwest border,” he added later.

Although most illegal migrants come to the United States in search of economic opportunity and an overall better life, a substantial number of undocumented young men are increasingly getting involved in street gang-related criminal activity.

“The overwhelming number of people that come are good, decent people looking for a better way to make a living,” he said.

“An awful lot of them, not a majority by no means these are good people as a group, but because of a lot of different reasons, the young men are often times in relatively large numbers drawn into crime,” also said Kelly. “Not all of them but some of them. MS-13 is full of people that have come here from that part [Central America] of the world and are criminals.”

He warned would-be illegal aliens that it is not worth spending their money on human traffickers because DHS will apprehend and return them.

The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are components of DHS.