Yet another top Homeland Security official is leaving the department

(Image credit: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images)

published 10 April 2019

In one of her final acts as Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen announced on Tuesday that Claire Grady, the department's undersecretary of management and acting deputy secretary, submitted her resignation, effective Wednesday.

Under the department's rules, if the secretary leaves, the undersecretary of management becomes acting secretary. President Trump apparently didn't know this, because when he announced on Sunday that Nielsen was stepping down, he also said Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, would become acting secretary. Grady's departure now clears the path for Trump to install McAleenan.

The Department of Homeland Security is going through a tumultuous time, with Nielsen and Secret Service Director Randolph Alles both being pushed out. Several administration officials have said White House adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner, is behind the shake-up, and the purge won't end with Grady's exit — Trump is reportedly also looking at removing two U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services leaders, director Lee Cissna and policy director Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, and Homeland Security general counsel John Mitnick.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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