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Disliked, Unappreciated — It Is Tough to Be the DHS Secretary

Your choices have consequences and maybe regrets.

Becoming Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary might have looked good on paper, but I'm thinking that Kirstjen Nielsen is regretting her decision to put her neck on the Trump chopping block. See this: The hostile border between Trump and the head of DHS.

I'm not in the Oval Office or at cabinet meetings, but much of what is written in the article rings true. One item about her unpopularity within the agency was confirmed very early in her administration by a personal source who knows many people at the agency. 

Thus, I'm sure she will try to make it 18 months, which is the typical term for a "normal administration's" appointments. If the general tenor of the article is correct — I don't think she'll make it that long. At least she appears to have a modicum of integrity for not falsifying a report to match what the White House wanted it to say for political reasons. 

I give her less than six more months — especially if the border crossing numbers stay up. She doesn't sound like a quitter, so it will be a slog — dog years in the DHS head position.

Sad!

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.