When he’s not redefining the First Amendment for all of us, and when he’s not pining publicly for the days of parfait gentil knights and their Ladies Fair, John Kelly, the former general and presently White House chief-of-staff, spends most of his time being an authoritarian stooge. In his previous gig, as director of Homeland Security, Kelly was the sharp end of the president*’s early attempts to blindfold the Statue of Liberty. Now that he’s in his new gig, as The Washington Post tells us, Kelly is still on the case of people who make him feel all icky about being an American.

On Monday, as the Department of Homeland Security prepared to extend the residency permits of tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants living in the United States, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly called Acting Secretary Elaine Duke to pressure her to expel them, according to current and former administration officials. Duke refused to reverse her decision and was angered by what she felt was a politically driven intrusion by Kelly and Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser, who also called her about the matter, according to officials with knowledge of Monday’s events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

I’ve never heard of Elaine Duke, but she is now my favorite member of this administration*. Telling the White House COS to pound sand takes some rare guts under any president but, under this president*, it takes a spine of adamantium.

Getty Images

DHS had until the end of the day Monday to announce its plans for some 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans who were allowed to remain in the United States under TPS after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998. Another 50,000 Haitians and 200,000 Salvadorans were nervously awaiting the decision, as their residency permits will expire early next year. Trump administration officials have repeatedly cited the TPS program as an example of what they say is U.S. immigration policy gone awry, because a program designed to be temporary should not be used to grant long-term residency in the United States.

These are people who have been here for years, working and contributing to their communities, and who are here because their home countries were either devastated by natural disasters, or charnel houses of civil bloodshed. In short, they were victims of exactly the same kinds of things that brought the Irish, to name one group of immigrants that seems relevant to our discussion of John Kelly, to the United States. Duke seems to get this. Kelly doesn’t seem to give a damn.

“He was persistent, telling her he didn’t want to kick the can down the road, and that it could hurt [Nielsen’s] nomination,” said one administration official. Duke held her ground, the official said. “She was angry. To get a call like that from Asia, after she’d already made the decision, was a slap in the face.” “They put massive pressure on her,” said another former official with knowledge of the call. Duke wanted to proceed carefully, because the Central Americans have lived in the United States for two decades or more, and she had been contacted by former U.S. diplomats who implored her to weigh the decision carefully. Congress created the TPS designation in 1990 to refrain from deporting foreign nationals to nations too unstable to receive them following natural disasters, civil strife or a health crisis. Previous administrations have repeatedly renewed the residency permits every 18 months, and over the years TPS has become a target of immigration hard-liners who say the law has been abused.

He’s as bad as the rest of them. Never think otherwise.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io