Kelly shoulders blame for troubled travel ban rollout

Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly fell on his sword for the White House Tuesday, taking blame for the widely criticized rollout of President Trump’s travel ban — while simultaneously insisting it did not create chaos.

Throughout a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on border security, Kelly blamed any “chaos” at U.S. airports on protesters and insisted “misreporting” led to the perception that the White House left him out of the loop on the particulars of the executive order.

{mosads}In a move that sent some ripples through the packed hearing room, Kelly shouldered the blame for the administration’s failure to provide Congress with any advance notice of the signing of the Jan. 27 order.

“In retrospect, I should have — and this is all on me, by the way — I should have delayed it just a bit so I could talk to members of Congress … to prepare them for what was coming,” Kelly told lawmakers on Tuesday. 

The order imposes a 90-day travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, halts the U.S. refugee program for 120 days and indefinitely suspends refugee resettlement from Syria. 

Press reports have characterized the initial rollout of the ban as chaotic at best, while critics of the ban labeled it inhumane at worst.

Critics have argued that in its rush to fulfill a campaign promise, the White House gave the agency responsible for implementing the ban inadequate notice and direction to do so smoothly.

The New York Times reported that Kelly himself was on a Coast Guard plane when he found out about the contents of the order, as it was being signed — a sequence of events he has repeatedly denied. Kelly reiterated Tuesday that he “knew full well” what was in the order ahead of its implementation.

In the first days of implementation, reports emerged that detainees were left standing for hours on end and were verbally abused by overwhelmed Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials — reports that Kelly summarily dismissed on Tuesday.

“Didn’t happen,” he said.

“If you ask the CBP people that were working the counters, they don’t know what you’re talking about when you’re talking about chaos,” Kelly said.

“Now, if you then look out to where the demonstrators were and, with all due respect, some public officials, there was chaos, but that was due to other factors.”

Large numbers of protesters, which included some members of Congress, popped up at airports around the country the first weekend the ban was in effect.

Kelly also pushed back fiercely on a weekend report from The Washington Post that chief strategist Steve Bannon personally attempted to stop him from issuing a waiver for green-card holders.

“I read that article Saturday morning, and I would tell you that every paragraph, every sentence, every word, every space, every comma, every period was wrong,” Kelly said. “It was a fantasy story.”

Kelly was measured in his criticism of the press, noting that individual reporters had likely been given bad information by sources who were not clued into the real details. He noted that he told his public affairs team to find the writer of The Washington Post piece — an opinion column from Josh Rogin — and “tell him that whoever his sources are, they are playing him for a fool.”

But while he was less critical of the press than the White House — and Trump himself — Kelly refused to break with the president’s characterization of the rollout of the ban as a smooth process that impacted only a small number of travelers.

“I think it was very smooth,” Trump said in an interview aired over the weekend. “We had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers, and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully.”

The administration has repeatedly cited the 109 number as evidence of the narrow impact of the ruling. The figure, according to the White House, reflects only those travelers who were in the air when the order was signed and were subsequently detained — not the number of travelers who were prevented from boarding a plane. Three hundred forty-eight people were denied boarding during the first weekend of the order, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Some reports have suggested that the 109 figure that the president has leaned on is outdated and may be much higher.

Critics have suggested that the White House should have provided some advance notice to allow airlines, federal agencies and travelers themselves to prepare for the implementation of the ban — reasoning disputed by Trump, who argued that a one-week notice would have given “bad dudes” the opportunity to rush into the country.

Kelly Tuesday parroted that reasoning.

“The thinking was to get it out quick so that, potentially, people who might be coming here to harm us would not be taking advantage of some period of time where they might jump on an airplane,” Kelly told lawmakers.

That explanation has mystified immigration and refugee lawyers who say that because of existing vetting procedures, no traveler from the seven countries affected would be able to plan a trip to the United States without starting the process months in advance.

In a tense exchange with Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), Kelly made no bones about where his loyalties lie.

Pressed on whether he was concerned about reported attempts by Bannon to wield greater influence over national security policy — the Breitbart News mogul is widely thought to be the architect behind the hastily rolled-out policy and has been named to the National Security Council — Kelly was emphatic: “No.”

“I work for one man — his name is Donald Trump, obviously. He has told me, ‘Kelly, secure the border.’ And that’s what I’ll do,” Kelly said.

“Well, actually you were chosen by him,” Rice said. “You work for us. You work for the American people, first and foremost. I’m sure that’s what you meant.”

“We all work for the American people,” Kelly allowed.