Secret Service director is the latest casualty in DHS shake-up

A day after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen abruptly resigned, the director of the Secret Service is out, too.

On Monday, the White House confirmed that Randolph “Tex” Alles, whom President Donald Trump appointed as director of the Secret Service in April 2017, would be leaving his post, after multiple media outlets reported that he had been ousted. The announcement comes amid a broader shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and follows the arrest of a Chinese woman who allegedly breached security at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort carrying multiple electronic devices.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump is “thankful” to Alles “for his over 40 years of service to the country.” Alles served for 35 years in the US Marine Corps, retired in 2011, and held multiple positions at US Customs and Border Protection prior to becoming Secret Service director.

Alles’s ouster is the latest development in personnel changes at DHS. Eileen Sullivan and Maggie Haberman at the New York Times report that L. Francis Cissna, head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and John Mitnik, DHS’s general counsel, are also headed for the exit. If those departures become official, it will leave the top echelons of the department responsible for the nation’s public security relatively empty.

Last week, Trump abruptly withdrew his nomination of acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement head Ron Vitiello to lead agency permanently. He told reporters he was “going in a tougher direction.” And Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is also under DHS, stepped down in February.