Trumps taps retired Marine general John Kelly for DHS

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, whose last command included oversight of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, to run the Department of Homeland Security, people close to the transition team said Wednesday.

Kelly, who joined the Marine Corps in 1970, retired earlier this year, wrapping up a final, three-year post as head of U.S. Southern Command, which spanned some of the more fractious debate over the Obama administration's ultimately failed pledge to close Guantanamo.

Highly respected, often outspoken, and known as a fierce, loyal commander, Kelly will take over the nation's newest federal agency, with responsibilities from airport security and terrorism to immigration and the Coast Guard.

If confirmed by the Senate, Kelly would be the fifth person to lead the department, which is comprised of agencies that protect the president, respond to disasters, enforce immigration laws, protect the nation's coastlines and secure air travel.

Southern Command, which is based in South Florida, regularly works with DHS on missions to identify and dismantle immigrant smuggling networks.

[...] it has partnered with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an operation targeting human smuggling into the U.S. and helped with the rescue of children arriving alone at U.S. borders.

If immigration enforcement is prioritized the way Trump promised during his presidential campaign, the department will be challenged with beefing up the screening of immigrants allowed to come into the U.S., and finding additional resources to track down and deport people living in America illegally.

During a 2014 hearing, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he didn't have the ships or surveillance assets to get more than 20 percent of the drugs leaving Colombia for the U.S. He said he often had "very good clarity" on the drug traffickers, but much of the time "''I simply sit and watch it go by."