President-elect Trump’s selection of retired Marine General John Kelly is an encouraging sign that Trump is serious about reversing the course set by President Obama. Kelly did not hide his disagreement with Obama’s policies either before or after his retirement.

Kelly has been outspoken about his concern for the vulnerability of the US border with Mexico, while Obama and other liberals have insisted that the border is already secure. Even after The Washington Post recognized in September that Obama’s efforts to stop “migrants illegally crossing into the United States have largely failed,” Obama, Clinton, and congressional Democrats kept saying that existing measures were sufficient. Kelly, on the other hand, told the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee on April 13 that the existing networks that smuggle people and drugs across the border could just as easily bring terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. He said he was deeply concerned that terrorist use of this vulnerability was only a matter of time. There can be little doubt that Gen. Kelly will push for whatever measures will close the border with Mexico to all types of smugglers.

The Guantanamo prison for terrorists was another issue on which Kelly clashed with the political correctness of Obama. Contradicting the President’s claim that Guantanamo was a propaganda mainstay for Islamic terrorists, Kelly pointed out “what tends to bother them is the fact that we’re holding them there indefinitely without trial. . . . If we send them, say, to a facility in the U.S., we’re still holding them without trial.”

Kelly has experience fighting Islamic terrorists, having served in Iraq in 2003, 2004, and 2008. The danger of “home-grown” terrorists infected by internet contact is something he recognizes as a major threat, warning that the Islamic State now tells American sympathizers to “stay at home and do San Bernardino.” He is not likely to write off terrorist acts as “workplace violence.”

Perhaps the best part of Kelly’s nomination is that it means Homeland Security will not be placed in the hands of Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX). McCaul, who has been frequently mentioned as the candidate the Washington establishment would back in their 2018 attempt to defeat Sen. Ted Cruz, was under consideration for the job. However, strong opposition from conservatives who pointed out his unsatisfactory record on border security appears to have blocked McCaul from this key post.