The move would put a military commander who directly supervised US operations in Central and South America in charge of one of the president-elect’s signature platforms: securing the border between Mexico and the US.
Gen. Kelly would become the second retired Marine general to join Trump’s cabinet. Both he and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, the choice for defense secretary, must be confirmed by the Senate.
Trump also has tapped retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, the Wall Street Journal reported. And he is considering whether to nominate Adm. Michael Rogers to be the director of national intelligence, and retired Army Gen. David Petraeus as secretary of state, although there are several candidates for that post.
In addition to Gen. Mattis and Gen. Kelly, the chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford, also is a Marine and will be in that post through most of 2017.
Gen. Kelly’s views on immigration and tightening the border were likely to have appealed to Trump. Before retiring, Gen. Kelly testified that the border between Mexico and the US was too loose. “The border is, if not wide open, then certainly open enough to get what the demand requires inside of the country,” he said during congressional testimony.
DHS was created by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and it has more than 240,000 employees, ranking it as the government’s third-largest cabinet agency.