SAN DIEGO (AP) - The Latest on U.S. Homeland Security chief visiting California border (all times local):
5:40 p.m.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has told officials at the California-Mexico border that he won’t make any “Draconian moves” regarding federal funding for so-called sanctuary cities.
Kelly spoke Friday with federal, state and local law enforcement officials at the San Ysidro port of entry.
President Donald Trump last month said he would cut federal grants for sanctuary cities.
Kelly, who visited Texas last week and Arizona on Thursday, said he got an “earful” from law enforcement officials about where they’d most like to see sections of Trump’s promised border wall built.
San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman asked for a definition of a sanctuary city and Kelly replied that he didn’t “have a clue.”
The security chief said he was stunned when some people say local authorities won’t cooperate with federal authorities even in removing convicted criminals from the country.
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9:57 a.m.
SAN DIEGO - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly is wrapping up a two-day tour of the nation’s border with Mexico as plans take shape to build a wall along the 2,000-mile divide between the two countries.
Kelly was scheduled to tour one of the most fortified stretches of the border on Friday, separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.
On Thursday, he toured southern Arizona, which was the busiest corridor for illegal crossings from 1998 to 2013, when large numbers of Central American families and children made southern Texas the most preferred route.
The visit is Kelly’s first to the border in Arizona and California since he became secretary last month. Last week, the retired four-star Marine general toured the border in southern Texas.
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