Kris Kobach for DHS Secretary
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is—hands down, no contest—the best, strongest, and most logical choice to head Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.
President-elect Donald Trump made immigration enforcement and border security the centerpiece of his winning campaign. He defied the open-borders establishment on the Left and the Right. He listened to American victims of illegal immigration who were snubbed by the RNC. He was endorsed by American workers whose careers were sabotaged by H-1B policies championed by other GOP candidates.
Trump’s commitment to American sovereignty and the inclusion of staunch immigration enforcement hawks in his inner circle were prime reasons I voted for him—and why I refused over the past year to join the “Never Trump” crowd when they called me up asking me to sign their grand statements and open letters. It is why I was able to set aside other policy misgivings and support and vote for him without hesitation over BushRubioKasichHillary.
Now, Trump needs a bulldog at DHS with the expertise, experience, and energy to fulfill his promises to put America and American workers and American rule of law first.
Kobach is the whole package: A constitutional lawyer, a former DHS official who knows the ins and outs of the $40 billion, 240,000-employee homeland security bureaucracy, and a statewide executive officeholder who has used his position to fight against election fraud and corruption. He’s a Marshall scholar and Yale Law grad who has not lost his heartland roots and soul. His specialty as an advisor to former Attorney General John Ashcroft? Immigration law and border security.
(By contrast, Obama’s current DHS secretary Jeh Johnson—a man with ZERO experience in border security, port security, airport security or immigration enforcement–got there because of his crony campaign finance bundler status.)
As I’ve documented previously, Kobach led the creation of NSEERS after 9/11. That’s the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System that required higher scrutiny and common-sense registration requirements for individuals from jihad-friendly countries including Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as other at-risk countries.
NSEERS stopped at least 330 known foreign criminals and three known terrorists who had attempted to come into the country at certain official ports of entry. The system applied exactly the kind of heightened scrutiny of potential jihadists from terror-coddling countries that Trump called for during the campaign.
The next DHS secretary cannot afford to take precious time doing on-the-job training. He must be ready to roll—and not be rolled.
Kobach has extensive experience crafting legislation, implementing counterterrorism programs, testifying before Congress, and dealing with protesters and the media. One of his biggest assets is his hands-on experience combating some of Trump’s most vocal enemies. He has battled the ACLU, the immigration lawyers’ lobby, and ethnic groups that don’t believe in our borders.
The Kansas public servant and father of five daughters has also volunteered his legal services over the years to individuals who were victims of bloody open-borders policies—as well as states and localities fighting in court for the right to stop illegal immigration in their backyards and workplaces.
“Some people golf in their spare time,” Kobach once remarked. “I defend American sovereignty.”
This would be a serious pick and a perfect fit. And it’s why the mere possibility of DHS Secretary Kobach has the usual heads exploding.
For Trump to appoint Kris Kobach as Attorney General would be to declare war on civil and constitutional rights.
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) November 16, 2016
Kansas’ Kris Kobach, immigration hardliner, could be Trump’s attorney general https://t.co/7osUKQl3p3
— Anita Kumar (@anitakumar01) November 15, 2016
If you are black or Latino, Kobach as AG should send as many chills through your spine as Giuliani. https://t.co/AYvogFSBKN
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) November 15, 2016
The objections won’t just come from far Leftists. Sore-loser anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate will be tempted to help block a Kobach nomination.
I would remind those feckless GOP obstructionists that they bent over backwards to show deference to Barack Obama for his picks.
Remember Orrin Hatch and company slobbering over AG nominee Eric Holder in 2009? I do:
“I like Barack Obama and want to help him if I can.” That was Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch in January 2009, just weeks before the Senate voted on President Obama’s attorney general nominee, Eric Holder. Right out of the gate, upon Obama’s election in November 2008, Hatch signaled that he would greenlight the administration’s top law enforcer.
“I start with the premise that the president deserves the benefit of the doubt,” the six-term incumbent Hatch told The Hill newspaper. “I don’t think politics should be played with the attorney general.”
In this critical time of ISIS metastasis around the world, out-of-control borders, rampant abuse of guest worker and non-immigrant visa programs, massive backlogs and fraud, and completely overwhelmed DHS agencies, this is no time to bend to usual Beltway politics and games. DHS needs a man ready to restore the rule of law and reclaim the department from the day one—whether it be in the courtroom fighting for the border wall or against Obama’s legacy executive amnesties or in the field.
Nothing Donald Trump does will ever appease the Washington donor class, mainstream media, or social justice mob. You can’t appease the Unappeaseables. Kobach is “controversial” for the same reasons Trump is:
He’s not afraid or ashamed to insist that America come first.
