US President Donald Trump's immigration and travel ban made "an awful lot of sense" but probably should have been delayed at least long enough to brief Congress about it, homeland security secretary John Kelly has told politicians.
Mr Kelly's comment to the House Homeland Security Committee was the most direct acknowledgement by a high-level administration official that the rollout of Mr Trump's executive order had been mishandled.
"In retrospect, I should have - this is all on me, by the way - I should have delayed it just a bit so that I could talk to members of Congress, particularly to the leadership of committees like this, to prepare them for what was coming," Mr Kelly said in his first public meeting with politicians since being confirmed by the senate last month.
Mr Trump's executive order temporarily stopped citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US and also temporarily barred the admission of refugees.
A court has blocked the order, but the administration is appealing.
Mr Kelly defended the order, saying it will enhance public safety "for all our citizens".
He was put on the defensive by Democratic politicians who have argued that the travel ban is inhumane, counterproductive and essentially a Muslim ban - an allegation Mr Kelly repeatedly denied.
Mr Kelly referred to the order as a "pause" that would give the US government time to fully evaluate how would-be visitors and refugees are being vetted before they are allowed into the country.
The Trump administration, including justice department lawyers defending the order in a federal appeals court, has said the travel ban was necessary to keep would-be terrorists out of the country.
Mr Trump has repeatedly tweeted that a court order temporarily blocking the ban is leading to "people pouring in".
In a tweet this week, Mr Trump said "many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country".
Pressed by Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee's ranking Democrat, to address the president's claim, Mr Kelly said only that the government will not know for sure if someone with bad intentions entered the US "until the boom".
"We won't know until then," Mr Kelly said, referring to a possible attack.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article