Transcript: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's Full Interview With NPR

NPR Southwest Correspondent John Burnett talks to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Here's the full transcript of their conversation.

John Burnett: Madam Secretary there's this growing — I've covered immigration for a while now. There is a growing resistance and a pushback to the DHS's immigration enforcement. Just to name a few — more than 300 sanctuary cities, jurisdictions and counting, advocates counseling immigrants not to open the door for ICE agents. Even some local governments like Nashville and Memphis that are taking steps to shield people from driving without a license so they don't get fed into the criminal justice system and get deported. Presidents Obama and Bush deported way more people than President Trump but it seems like it's under this administration that you all are getting the most blowback. Why do you think that is?

Kirstjen Nielsen: I think the short answer is the culture, environment has changed and there is a underlying misunderstanding of the threat. So we often look at it as a culture as an immigration issue but it's not. It's a border security issue, it's a national security issue. So our duty is to make sure that Americans have awareness of the threat that these loopholes and gaps in border security pose and that's where we'll continue to do.

Hmm. But it does seem like that some of the grassroots resistance is is really shrill around the country. Does that does that affect you? Does it bother you that these policies that you've dedicated yourself to have aroused so many people?

Uh, it does because at the end of the day the men and women of DHS who work hard every day and often put their lives at risk have taken oaths to uphold the law and that's what they're trying to do. So the shrillness and the pushback in terms of us enforcing the law is inappropriate and unacceptable.