President Trump continued to dismantle the leadership of the top domestic security agency as the White House announced the imminent removal of U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph D. “Tex” Alles, the latest in a series of head-spinning departures from the Department of Homeland Security, the Washington Post reports. A day after Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to step aside, senior DHS officials remained in a fog about the fate of their agency’s leaders, expecting more firings as part of a widening purge. “They are decapitating the entire department,” said one DHS official, noting that the White House had given no cause for Alles’s removal.
The instability extends to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose director, William “Brock” Long, left DHS in February after supervising emergency and recovery efforts for several massive natural disasters. L. Francis Cissna, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and DHS General Counsel John Mitnick could be the next to go. Since the department’s creation in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, successive presidents have viewed stability at DHS as a top priority for national security, counterterrorism efforts and, more broadly, the nation’s collective peace of mind. With nearly two dozen agencies and sub-agencies, DHS is responsible for safeguarding the country’s immigration system, cyber-networks, land borders and coasts, as well as responding to disasters and protecting the country’s public officials. Trump is furious about the department’s inability to reduce unauthorized migration to the U.S., with one of his signature campaign issues devolving into a glaring failure. Several administration officials said Monday that Trump appears to be taking out his frustrations on the entire DHS leadership, convinced he needs a full sweep. No president before Trump has pushed the security agencies into such a state of churning confusion.