The former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen reportedly went into a meeting with President Trump on Sunday expecting to determine a “way forward” on what to do at the U.S.- Mexico border, but ended with her resignation, The New York Times reported.
According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Times, Nielsen believed she could have a reasonable conversation with Trump, who, in recent days, has ramped up his threats to shutdown the southern border because the U.S. is “full.” Nielsen reportedly thinks that Trump’s recent rhetoric is “ineffective and inappropriate,” in the Times’ words and she arrived at the meeting with a list of items that would need to change in order for the two to have a better working relationship.
According to the Times, the meeting lasted a genial 30 minutes, but Trump had already made up his mind that he wanted her out. She submitted her letter of resignation afterward.
The relationship between the two has been disintegrating for weeks. According to the Times, Trump had started making a habit of calling Nielsen at her home early in the morning asking her to block immigrants from entering the U.S. at the border, sometimes requesting she take illegal actions, like cutting off asylum seekers.
Nielsen’s opposition to to the reinstatement of the administration’s infamous family separation policy was also a point of contention between Nielsen and Trump, NBC News reported Monday. Trump has been pushing to reignite the program, which he thinks was an effective deterrent, and Nielsen has had to remind him that federal court orders prevent the department from backpedaling on his own executive order.
Read Nielsen’s letter of resignation below:
