On Sunday, Jeh Johnson, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under former President Barack Obama, said that President Biden believes there is “no level of defense that can counteract the powerful push factors in Central America” that impel the huge surge of illegal immigration at the southern border.
Johnson spoke with Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face The Nation.” Brennan pointed out that the Biden administration and the CDC were planning to lift Title 42 — the coronavirus public health directive that was implemented in March 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the Trump administration and restricts asylum claims, being responsible for deporting roughly 1.7 million migrants — then commented, “When we hear from the administration that they could see as many as 18,000 migrants per day crossing that border, it seems incredible. Senate Democrats have said the administration is not prepared. Do you think they are?”
After claiming that DHS officials had informed him that they were “making preparations, that they are prepared, that there are resources, transportation in place for this level of of migration on our southern border,” Johnson admitted, “Without a doubt, these are large numbers. DHS, I believe, has learned lessons from the past, in surges in the past, including when I was in office. But, still, numbers at these levels are difficult to handle on the southern border. Communities on the southern border, catholic charities, the volunteers, difficult to absorb these types of numbers under almost any scenario. It&#8217;s challenging for the Border Patrol, for ICE to properly process and track these individuals.”
Brennan noted that both President Biden and Vice President Harris publicly called for migration to slow in 2021, then asked, “So why haven&#8217;t we heard anything like that now? Is it because the administration took so much heat from progressive Democrats?”
“Margaret, I can only tell you about my own experience dealing with this very, very difficult issue,” Johnson replied. “I have learned that you have to repeat a message dozens and dozens of times before people actually do begin to hear it.”
“The longer-term lesson, however, is that migration is a market sensitive phenomenon. It reacts sharply to news in the information marketplace about enhanced enforcement, decreased enforcement on our southern border,” he said. “We can repeat these messages over and over again, and we should. But, as long as the underlying conditions exist, the poverty, violence in Central America exists, the numbers are going to always revert back to their longer-term trend lines. There is no level of defense that can counteract the powerful push factors in Central America. That&#8217;s something that I know President Biden believes in. We discussed it extensively when he was vice president and I was secretary of Homeland Security.”
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US-POLITICS-CABINET-OBAMA-JOHNSON

Former Obama Sec Of Homeland Security Says Biden Believes ‘No Level Of Defense’ Can Stop Surge Of Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration

Jeh Johnson

Joe Biden

A student newspaper&#8217;s editorial board at a New York liberal arts college wrote an apology this week for a February article &#8212; claiming too many white students were quoted &#8212; and issued a retraction.
The article that was retracted by Vassar College&#8217;s newspaper, The Miscellany News, centered on the withdrawal of former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson from giving a speech at commencement this year. Johnson decided against speaking after campus pushback on his border deportation policies.
On Wednesday, The Miscellany News <a href="https://miscellanynews.org/2022/03/23/news/apology-from-the-editors-2/">published</a> an apology for the Johnson piece — noting its staff believes in the &#8220;values of diversity and inclusion.&#8221; The student newspaper said it chose to yank the article &#8220;to prevent further harm among the communities we misrepresented&#8221; since most people quoted in it were apparently white students.
&#8220;The majority of our quotations came from white students and therefore we reduced the positions of students of color to a singular, tokenized perspective,&#8221; the apology said. &#8220;After this was brought to our attention, the paper decided to remove the article online in an attempt to prevent further harm among the communities we misrepresented.&#8221;
&#8220;However, misrepresentation is not the only issue in the article—to state so would be a grievous oversimplification,&#8221; the apology continued, noting that journalism &#8220;has historically been a white-centric&#8221; profession and that its decision to quote white students was indicative of &#8220;the privilege and lack of diversity that we have allowed to persist for generations across our boards.&#8221;
The student newspaper&#8217;s editor in chief did not respond to a Daily Wire request for comment. Replacing Johnson to speak at commencement, who was the first black man to serve as DHS Secretary, is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-leguizamo-upset-latinx-talent-not-represented-at-oscars">actor</a> John Leguizamo. The Miscellany News <a href="https://miscellanynews.org/2022/03/15/news/john-leguizamo-talks-about-bruno-2022-commencement/">says</a> Leguziamo has &#8220;pride in his Latinx ethnicity.&#8221;
Vassar, located in Poughkeepsie, is no stranger to controversy. In 2015, an administrator ripped up a copy of the U.S. Constitution, watchdog <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PZAzLTQlX8&amp;t=45s">group</a> Project Veritas reported. In a statement to The Daily Wire, the Town of Poughkeepsie&#8217;s Republican Committee Chair said the student newspaper is engaging in censorship.
&#8220;Retracting  a story because a specific demographic is under quoted not only discounts the opinions of those quoted, it censors the writer,&#8221; said Amy Bombardieri. &#8220;If a wide enough variety of people were not utilized, the better way to correct the situation would be to expand on the story. Censorship is a very dangerous way to ensure feelings aren&#8217;t hurt.&#8221;
In order to ensure the &#8220;integrity&#8221; of quotes included in future articles, the newspaper announced it will craft a &#8220;review board&#8221; separate from the editorial board — so it can &#8220;address the systemic problems&#8221; it faces.

Vassar College

College Newspaper Retracts Article On Obama DHS Secretary For Quoting Too Many White Students

Education

Jeh Johnson, former President Barack Obama&#8217;s secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told CNN late last week that the Biden administration needs to get control of the U.S.-Mexico border.
&#8220;If you go to any border congressional district, Lorado, Texas, for example, which is 85 percent Mexican-American, 80 percent or so Democratic, they&#8217;ll tell you that we should be fair and humane to migrants,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;But they also want us to control our borders. We have to get control of our borders. And 200,000 a month is a lot of people. DHS just released the numbers for August. It&#8217;s 200,000. August is typically a month where it&#8217;s very low.&#8221;
Johnson said that the Biden administration needed to be stronger in a &#8220;sustained engagement&#8221; on the issue, which he said they would need to do &#8220;over and over and over again.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: “We have to get control of our borders.” <a href="https://t.co/NIKPwN2eup">pic.twitter.com/NIKPwN2eup</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1439580059015303184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED VIA <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2021-09-17/segment/06">CNN</a>:
<blockquote>ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Wow. Thank you so much for giving us a sense of what is happening there. Michael Roa, appreciate it. We&#8217;ll let you get to reporting. And that just shows you that this surge has not stopped. Joining us now is Jeh Johnson. He served as Homeland Security secretary under President Obama. Secretary Johnson, it&#8217;s always a pressure to have you and your insight and expertise on these matters. The congressman who represents this district is calling this a humanitarian crisis on steroids. What do you call this?
JEH JOHNSON, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Ana, this was &#8212; I owned this issue for three years as secretary of Homeland Security. This was by far the most intractable, difficult issue I ever worked on in public life. If you go to any border congressional district, Lorado, Texas, for example, which is 85 percent Mexican-American, 80 percent or so Democratic, they&#8217;ll tell you that we should be fair and humane to migrants. We should support DACA. We should support the DACA population. We should give people an opportunity for a path to citizenship if they&#8217;ve been in this country for years. But they also want us to control our borders. We have to get control of our borders. And 200,000 a month is a lot of people. DHS just released the numbers for August. It&#8217;s 200,000. August is typically a month where it&#8217;s very low. And those kinds of numbers and the images you just showed your audience saps the ability. It overwhelms the ability of DHS, the Border Patrol, ICE to cope with the incoming. It saps the communities on the border. It saps Catholic Charities that are there doing their best to clothe and feed the migrants. And so &#8212; and the recent decision of the U.S. district court in Washington that DHS and HHS can no longer invoke the public health exception to send people back to Mexico only complicates matters. We have to do something to enhance enforcement. Longer term, we&#8217;ve got to deal with the situation in Central America. As you and I have discussed previously.
CABRERA: Let&#8217;s break it down. Obviously, there&#8217;s an issue at hand that has to be dealt with. Right? We&#8217;re seeing the surge continues. We&#8217;re seeing people continue to cross as we speak into this sort of holding area under that bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The last check we had, the numbers were 12,500, according to the mayor. And we see more people going as we speak. So this crisis continues to worsen. And it&#8217;s continued to worsen since President Biden took office. You pointed out 200,000 encounters just last month alone. Typically, border crossings go down in the summer months. Not the case this year. What immediate action needs to happen right now? What action could President Biden&#8217;s secretary, Mayorkas, take?
JOHNSON: Well, first of all, the numbers like that are not necessarily Republican or Democratic numbers. They&#8217;re not necessarily partisan numbers. In President Trump&#8217;s third year of office, there were I think almost a million apprehensions on our southern border. Far larger than anything we saw in the Obama administration. The people there now ultimately will be processed and released into the interior of the United States simply because DHS, ICE, does not have the capability to hold all those people. But at some point along the way, we do need to send a strong message to the places where they&#8217;re coming from that there&#8217;s a right way and a wrong way to come to the United States. This is the wrong way. And if you come here, you will be turned back. There are a number of people who are being sent back. When I was in office, I used to literally go to Central America, greet the incoming airplanes that were bringing people back, bring the cameras so that people in those areas could see that we were actually sending people back. And messages like that can make a difference.
CABRERA: Both the vice president and DHS secretary have said publicly, do not come. That&#8217;s had little effect. Has this administration done enough to deter people from coming?
JOHNSON: I learned in Washington sometimes you have to say things 18 times before anybody listens. And it&#8217;s a message that has to continue to be repeated. Consistent with our values. We are a nation of immigrants. We should treat people fairly once they are here. We should give them an opportunity to make a claim for asylum. We should give people who have been here for years an opportunity to get on a path to citizenship. But there&#8217;s a right way and a wrong way to come here. What I said about border districts, I believe, is consistent with the views of the American people at large. They want us to be fair to these people who are desperate. But they want control of our borders as well. And we simply have to grapple with this situation. I know it&#8217;s difficult. But it can be done.
CABRERA: Vice President Harris was supposed to be taking point on this issue from the White House. What&#8217;s your assessment of how these handled this? I know you worked hand in hand with the-Vice President Biden, now president. At the time, he was vice president. He was on point. He assigned that to his vice president. How should she handle this?
JOHNSON: As I understand it, the vice president has been tasked with the diplomatic aspect of this, dealing with Central America, and that requires a sustained engagement by whoever is responsible for this. You&#8217;re correct. Vice president &#8212; then-Vice President Biden took a great interest in Central America. I personally traveled with him to Central America. I personally met with the presidents in that region alongside Vice President Biden. It takes a sustained engagement over and over and over again. And so that would be my candid advice to anyone in the administration who&#8217;s trying to grapple with this very, very difficult problem.
CABRERA: Just this week, two senior DHS officials announced their resignations. And one administration official tells CNN there&#8217;s this sense of tiredness. And that when it comes to the decision-making process, quote, &#8220;They are paralyzed by the bureaucracy.&#8221; I know these are complex issues. But has leadership failed here?
JOHNSON: Well, first of all, the turnover is nothing like what we saw in the Trump administration, with acting secretary after acting secretary after acting secretary. The constant churn in the Trump administration did not help matters. There&#8217;s always going to be a certain amount of turnover at the senior- most levels of a department like DHS, Ana, but it&#8217;s important that there be stability at the very top. Mayorkas, the current secretary is very experienced. He was deputy secretary when I was secretary. And I know that he is determined to address this issue in a fair, humane, and consistent way.
CABRERA: Would you be doing anything differently if you were secretary right now?
JOHNSON: I have no idea. I&#8217;m not secretary now. It&#8217;s easy for me to sit here and try to analyze this problem. I&#8217;m not in the thick of it anymore. And I just know how extremely difficult this issue is. No matter what you do, you&#8217;re going to make somebody very angry. And it&#8217;s an intractable problem as long as the push factors in Central America continue to exist. The lesson I learned is we can do certain things to enhance enforcement that will cause a sharp and short-term effect on the numbers and drive the numbers of migrants crossing the border down. But as long as the push factors in Central America, the poverty, violence, corruption, exists, the numbers are always going to revert back to the longer-term trend lines. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s so important that, through multiple administrations, we stay engaged on trying to address the push factors. We&#8217;ve done it before in Mexico 20 years ago. It can be done here, too.
CABRERA: Secretary Johnson, thank you so much for your time.</blockquote>

The 2019 Concordia Annual Summit – Day 2

Obama’s Homeland Security Chief On Biden’s Border Crisis: ‘We Have To Get Control Of Our Borders’

Border Crisis

The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Barack Obama appeared on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; Sunday to discuss President Trump&#8217;s decision to take out Iran&#8217;s top military leader, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, who the Pentagon says was &#8220;actively developing plans&#8221; for more attacks on Americans.
During the interview, former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson torpedoed the Democrats&#8217; talking point about Trump supposedly needing congressional approval to order the strike on Soleimani. Whether or not you agree with the Trump administration&#8217;s description of Soleimani as a terrorist,&#8221; Johnson explained, the president had &#8220;ample domestic legal authority to take him out without additional congressional authorization.&#8221;
&#8220;If you believe everything our government is saying about General Soleimani, he was a lawful military objective and the president, under his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, had ample domestic legal authority to take him out without additional congressional authorization,&#8221; Johnson told &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; host Chuck Todd Sunday, as reported by <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/01/05/obamas-dhs-secretary-debunked-dems-claim-congress-needed-to-approve-soleimanis-killing-n2558967">Town Hall</a> (video below). &#8220;Whether he was a terrorist or a general in a military force that was engaged in armed attacks against our people, he was a lawful military objective.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This morning, Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson debunked Democrats&#39; claim that Congress needed to approve Soleimani strike
Johnson: Soleimani was a &quot;lawful military objective&quot; &amp; the President had &quot;ample domestic legal authority to take him out&quot; <a href="https://t.co/1LUqYAwm9j">pic.twitter.com/1LUqYAwm9j</a>
&mdash; Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/AZachParkinson/status/1213871053266673665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The U.S. Department of Defense explained in a statement issued shortly after the airstrike that killed Soleimani that the general was &#8220;actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.&#8221;
&#8220;General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,&#8221; the Defense Department revealed in the statement. &#8220;General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.&#8221;
After he defended Trump&#8217;s authority to order the strike against the general, Johnson was promptly targeted by the left, including <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/meet-press/meet-press-doesnt-disclose-guest-talking-about-iran-lockheed-martin-board-member">Media Matters</a>, which accused both Johnson and Todd of failing to disclose that the former DHS secretary is now a board member of defense contractor Lockheed Martin – suggesting Johnson is actively attempting to promote war for his self-interest.
&#8220;Jeh Johnson, who was secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss President Donald Trump ordering the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani,&#8221; the Media Matters report reads. &#8220;Neither Johnson nor host Chuck Todd <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-january-5-2020-n1110181">disclosed</a> that Johnson is a board member of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which reportedly paid him over $300,000 in 2018 alone.&#8221;
The left-wing organization also highlighted a tweet from Popular Information’s Judd Legum calling foul on the omission:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson appeared on Meet The Press and asserted Trump had &quot;ample domestic legal authority to take [Soleimani] out without an additional congressional authorization&quot;
NOT DISCLOSED: Johnson is currently on the board of defense contractor Lockheed Martin <a href="https://t.co/cimTpyolTf">pic.twitter.com/cimTpyolTf</a>
&mdash; Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) <a href="https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1213906520359997440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In its report on Johnson&#8217;s defense of Trump&#8217;s authority to order the strike, Town Hall cites a document on the &#8220;<a href="https://www.peterson.af.mil/Portals/15/documents/Units/JudgeAdvocate/AFD-160210-019.pdf">Law of Armed Conflict</a>&#8221; released by the Peterson Air Force Base&#8217;s Legal Office, which defines &#8220;military objectives&#8221; as &#8220;any object which by its nature, location, purpose, or use makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture, or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.&#8221;
In April 2019, the U.S. Department of State announced that Soleimani was responsible for 17 percent of American deaths during the Iraqi War (2003-2011) as the man in control of all Iranian and Iran-backed operations in the region.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-iraq-votes-to-kick-u-s-out-trump-drops-the-hammer-in-response">Iraq Votes To Kick U.S. Out, Trump Drops The Hammer In Response</a>

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Jeh Johnson

Former Obama Sec Of Homeland Security Says Biden Believes ‘No Level Of Defense’ Can Stop Surge Of Illegal Immigration

College Newspaper Retracts Article On Obama DHS Secretary For Quoting Too Many White Students

Obama’s Homeland Security Chief On Biden’s Border Crisis: ‘We Have To Get Control Of Our Borders’

WATCH: Obama’s DHS Secretary Debunks Dems’ Claim Trump Didn’t Have Authority To Kill Soleimani; Now He’s Under Fire From Left