President Donald Trump is considering selecting Chad Wolf, one of the authors behind the family separation policy, as his next Department of Homeland Security chief, according to NBC News.
Wolf, Kirstjen Nielsen's former chief of staff when she was head of DHS, currently serves as the department's undersecretary for policy.
The news comes one day after Politico reported two of Trump's top picks were ineligible due to technicalities in federal vacancy laws.
Ken Cuccinelli is currently the Acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services. Mark Morgan is the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Both are tough on immigration issues and both head two prominent immigration agencies at DHS.
Wolf is considered more lenient than Cuccinelli and Morgan, though some White House aides described his record as strong, per The New York Times.
NBC shows Wolf suggested migrant family separation in December 2017.
"Announce that DHS is considering separating family units, placing the adults in detention and placing minors under the age of 18 in the custody of HHS as unaccompanied alien children," Wolf wrote in an email to Gene Hamilton, counselor to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
One DHS official described Wolf as a "proven leader."
"There's been no one more committed to the DHS mission and the president's agenda than Chad, who's helped implement the policies credited to addressing record levels of illegal crossings at the border," the senior DHS official said.
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