Homeland Security secretary makes a stop in Dallas

Secretary of Homeland Security was in Dallas on Tuesday to move forward with his plans to secure the southern border.

Secretary John Kelly did not talk on camera but made it very clear he is passionate about protecting and securing the southern border.

On Monday, Kelly told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he is considering a new tactic on illegal immigrant families entering the U.S.

"Are Department of Homeland Security personnel going to separate the children from their moms and dads?” Blitzer asked Kelly.

"We have tremendous experience with dealing with unaccompanied minors,” he replied. “We turn them over to HHS, and they do a very, very good job of putting them in a kind of foster care or linking them up with family members in the United States."

Off camera, Kelly answered questions from a small group of reporters in Dallas about what some would call a hard line tactic. To him, the bottom line is that smugglers are exploiting women and children and a strong message needs to be sent to immigrant families.

Former Border Patrol Agent Hector Tarango, who is now a security consultant, believes the message will get through.

“Any time any action happens here in the US, it will trickle down to that country,” he said.

Kelly, who visited the Texas-Mexico border shortly after being sworn in, says the law gives the U.S. government the right to separate migrant parents from children. But he says the real focus should be on the growing body count of migrants on the border. Last year's death total was the highest since 2013. 

"The coyotes do not care,” Tarango said. “They are going to leave them behind."

Kelly says children are already being sent alone from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras through Mexico on so-called "beast trains." Many, he says, are raped, put into the sex trade or forced to join gangs or cartels.

"I would do most anything to deter the people from Central America getting on this very, very dangerous network that brings them up through Mexico into the United States,” he said.