The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) has lost some of its members, due to the Trump Adminstration’s zero tolerance border enforcement policy and the separation of families.
According to the Washington Post, four council members who assist the secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, have quit because they find the Trump Administration’s policy “morally repugnant.”
Bill Clinton’s former secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, ex-Democratic lawmaker Elizabeth Holtzman, and Obama Administration officials David Martin and Matthew Olsen all signed on the dotted line Monday and submitted their resignations.
Their names no longer appear on the HSAC member page.
Holtzman explained that the point of the move was to show the American people that “not everybody connected with the government is a brute, is a lawbreaker and that actually some of us do have a measure of conscience.”
The four said they were not consulted about the border policy and are done perpetuating an “illusion” that they have been giving advice.
“Were we consulted, we would have observed that routinely taking children from migrant parents was morally repugnant, counter-productive and ill-considered,” they said. “We cannot tolerate association with the immigration policies of this administration, nor the illusion that we are consulted on these matters.”
HSAC says it exists to “leverage the experience, expertise, and national and global connections of the HSAC membership to provide the Secretary [of Homeland Security] real-time, real-world, sensing and independent advice to support decision-making across the spectrum of homeland security operations.”
The council usually meets two times a year and members serve two-year terms, the Post noted.
[Image via Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images]
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