Trump taps Gen. John Kelly to lead Department of Homeland Security

WASHINGTON, U.S. - Retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, 66, will be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes agencies that protect the president, respond to disasters, enforce immigration laws, protect the nation’s coastlines and secure air travel. 

Kelly, who served for three years as head of U.S. Southern Command before retiring early this year, at times clashed with Obama over women in combat and whether to close Guantánamo. 

Kelly was opposed to closing the prison.

Meanwhile, just last year, Kelly told Congress that a lack of security on the U.S.-Mexican border posed a threat to the United States. 

Kelly would now be tasked with protecting U.S. borders and overseeing immigration policies, two centerpieces of Trump’s presidential campaign. 

His selection bolsters concerns about an increase in military influence in the White House — and as Trump moves forward on his signature issue to build a wall along the southern border and go after people living in the country illegally.

The man chosen also holds a more somber distinction. 

The battle-hardened veteran, who served three tours in Iraq, is the highest-ranking officer to lose a child in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly was killed in November 2010 in Afghanistan.

That status, as part of what the military calls a Gold Star family, puts him in the Cabinet of a presidential candidate who verbally attacked another Gold Star family: The Khans, Muslim-American immigrants who lost a son in Iraq and had criticized Trump at the Democratic National Convention.

Interestingly, Trump struck a softer tone on immigration in an interview published Wednesday after he was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

“We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud,” Trump said. “They got brought here at a very young age; they’ve worked here, they’ve gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they’re in never-never land because they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

He offered no details about a policy that would make that clear.

Post the Senate approval, Kelly would join retired Marine general James Mattis as defense secretary and retired Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn as national security adviser.