07 February 2017•Update: 08 February 2017
By Canberk Yuksel
NEW YORK
The rollout of President Donald Trump's travel ban should have been delayed to consult with Congress, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told a congressional committee Tuesday.
Kelly defended the executive order that is currently on hold that bara nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. as "lawful and constitutional", while acknowledging failures in the way it was introduced.
"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 the leadership of committees like this, to prepare them for what was coming, although I think most people would agree this has been a topic of President Trump certainly during his campaign and during the transition process," Kelly said.
Kelly's remarks appear to contradict Trump, who said the execution of the order was "very smooth".
The secretary nevertheless defended the order and asserted that the Justice Department would prevail in the courts to unblock it.
With the order in limbo, it is "entirely possible" dangerous people might enter the U.S., he said, although he conceded he did not have any evidence that has happened and probably would not “until the boom".
The order Trump signed Jan. 27 -- just a week into his term as president -- bars nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and freezes the government's entire refugee program for 120 days. Syrians are banned indefinitely, while Syrian Christians are prioritized for entry.
Before it was halted following a Seattle, Washington, federal court's restraining order, the executive action caused tens of thousands of visa revocations and dozens of arrests at airports, triggering mass demonstrations across the country.
