The New York Times reported Thursday Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen considered resigning after President Donald Trump harshly criticized her during a Wednesday cabinet meeting.
According to multiple former and current officials with knowledge of the event, the president chided Nielsen over her perceived failure to adequately secure the country’s borders.
As head of Homeland Security, Nielsen oversees a 20,000-person work force under Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A witness stated Trump targeted her in the midst of a rant about the lack of border progress.
When asked Thursday about the tense meeting, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told ABC News, “The president is committed to fixing our broken immigration system and our porous borders.”
In her own statement, Nielsen said she planned to “continue to direct the department to do all we can to implement the president’s security-focused agenda.”
She said Trump was “rightly frustrated that existing loopholes and the lack of congressional action have prevented this administration from fully securing the border.”
Two sources familiar with the blow-up claim Nielsen had written a letter of resignation. However, a representative for the Department of Homeland Security, Tyler Q. Houlton, denied the idea, firmly labeling it “false.”
Illegal border crossings are up in 2018, after record lows last year.