WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Wednesday the proposed border wall with Mexico will not extend the full length of the US-Mexico border, breaking with President Trump’s campaign rhetoric.
“It’s unlikely that we will build wall or physical barrier from sea to shining sea,” Kelly told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
He cited concerns with the acquisition of border land on Native American reservations, eminent domain and environmental habitats.
“We’re not going to build a wall … where it doesn’t make sense. But we’ll do something across the Southwest border,” Kelly said.
Trump had campaigned on a “big, beautiful wall” the length of the southwest border to keep out “bad hombres.”
The border wall would cost billions and require the government to buy miles of private land along the 2,200-mile-long border.
Kelly said he’s been given “elbow room” by the president to execute the border as he sees fit and the wall could be combination of fencing, surveillance and technology.
“You get it,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told Kelly about his realistic vision of the wall. She said Congress will never approve a full concrete border wall and it’s “embarrassing” Trump won’t acknowledge that Mexico won’t pay for the it.
“The sooner we stop this, you know, ‘We’re going to build a wall from sea to shining sea and the Mexicans are going to pay for it.’ It’s embarrassing,” McCaskill, the top Democrat on the committee, said.
“It’s not going to happen. Everybody in Congress knows it’s not going to happen. … It appears the only person who won’t say it out loud is the president of the United States.”
Also Wednesday, Kelly said says parents and children caught crossing the Mexican border illegally won’t be separated except “if the situation at that point in time requires it.”
Kelly said border agents could separate parents and children if, for instance, the mother is addicted to drugs and if the life of the child is in jeopardy.
But he declined – upon the request of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) – to issue a written directive to his 230,000 Homeland Security staff.
“I don’t need to do that, I’ve done it verbally,” Kelly said.
Kelly’s comment appears to be a reversal of earlier statements that his agency was considering separating children and parents caught crossing the border illegally to serve as a deterrent.