White House nixed DHS chief McAleenan Refugee Day border welcome for migrants

The White House communications team and the Department of Homeland Security's acting secretary office engaged in a tense argument last month after acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan proposed traveling down to the U.S.-Mexico border on World Refugee Day to celebrate and welcome migrants, including those who entered illegally, two senior administration officials told the Washington Examiner. A senior public affairs official at DHS asked the White House in early June for permission to go down to the southern border with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on June 20. One person identified the official as acting DHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Andrew Meehan. "The wildly off base proposal was met with immediate concern as not being thought through," one official told the Washington Examiner Monday evening. A second official said the White House was concerned about the "optics" if two Cabinet officials were welcoming people who had illegally crossed into the country when President Trump has taken a hard stance against any type of illegal immigration, including against those who are seeking asylum on the southern border. The DHS official trying to advance McAleenan's proposal refused to accept the White House's decision and "sparred with" several members of the White House strategic communications team, including then-director Mercedes Schlapp, over "multiple contentious phone calls," the first source said. The second official said the fight lasted "weeks." "The obvious glaring concern was that the border crisis was about migrants and asylums, not refugees, DHS disagreed," the first official wrote in a text, suggesting the the appearance would seem supportive of the people abusing the system instead of legitimate refugees...MORE