Memo to potential Homeland Security chief Kris Kobach: Folders only keep your memos safe from prying eyes when the memos are placed inside the folder.
The Kansas secretary of state and counsel for the Immigration Law Reform Institute was photographed Sunday at ameeting with President-elect Donald Trump, holding a memo about the Department of Homeland Security that he carried on the outside of a folder.
Sharp-eyed reporters at the Topeka Capital Journal read the top page of the memo and said it described plans to question “high-risk” immigrants about Sharia law and the U.S. Constitution.
We wonder if they’ll be pressed on the First Amendment part of the Constitution, the one that bars discrimination based on religion? But we digress.
Kobach is a possible candidate to lead the Department of Homeland Security, the Capital Journal reported. Here’s hoping someone else will be responsible for the actual “security” part of the job.
But, no, seriously, folks: It’s also possible that Kobach left the page visible to gauge public reaction to it. Or that he doesn’t care who knows what, because he’s been upfront about his plans to reinstate what critics call a “Muslim registry,” because it would most affect Muslims coming to the U.S.
Kobach told Reuters last week that Trump’s immigration advisers could suggest re-instating a registry of people from mostly Muslim countries that the government determines to have active extremist groups.
The Capital Journal said the plans Kobach carried Monday call for barring the entry of “Potential Terrorists,” updating and reintroducing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, and asking “extreme vetting questions” of “high-risk aliens.” They also suggested no longer accepting Syrian refugees, the paper said.
Kobach helped design NSEER while working for President George W. Bush’s Justice Department after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. The Obama administration abandoned the program after civil rights groups said targeting people from mostly Muslim countries was discriminatory, and the Department of Homeland Security determined that it was redundant.
Kobach told Reuters of his plans outright, instead of forcing them to turn their laptops sideways and squint at his documents.