This morning at work I received an email from US Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), as I do every morning. Today’s email told me that Ken Cuccinelli had been appointed Acting Director of USCIS, effective June 10th. I looked at the date on my computer, June 10th. I, for one, had never heard of Ken Cuccinelli, so I googled him.
A quick Wikipedia search will give you the following basic information (See link 1 for the full page). Ken Cuccinelli was born July 30, 1968 in New Jersey. He went to Virginia State and majored in Mechanical Engineering. He then got his JD from George Mason University School of Law and an MA in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University. He was a member of the Virginia State senate from 2002 to 2010. In 2010 he became Virginia’s Attorney General, where he served until 2014.
But now it’s 2019, Ken Cuccinelli has just been appointed the acting director of USCIS. What got him here? And what can we reasonably expect from him?
Cuccinelli was a Ted Cruz supporter during the Republican primary of 2016 but had no problem jumping on the Donald Trump bandwagon once he was elected. He has been a longtime supporter of stricter immigration policy, supporting measures to “restrict access to public services, employment, and even citizenship from migrants and their families” (as reported by the Daily Beast, link 2 below). And his anti immigrant lawmaking doesn’t stop there.
The Daily Beast found “One proposed law would have allowed employers to fire employees who didn’t speak English in their workplace, and stipulated that any employee so fired would be ‘disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation benefits.’ Another bill would have allowed businesses to sue competitors that they believed to be employing undocumented, for ‘economic damages’, plus $500 ‘for each such illegal alien employed by the defendant.’”
Cuccinelli has also supported measures to limit or end “birthright citizenship” in the United States, long considered one of the staples of our immigration system. NPR reported that Cuccinelli has suggested that states should “invoke quote ‘war powers’ to turn away what he calls an ‘invasion’ of migrants from Central America seeking asylum in the U.S.” (link 3) In addition to these hardline immigration policies, Cuccinelli has supported banning abortion rights, abstinence only sex-education, and defended sodomy laws. His wikipedia page (link 1) lists him as being “a self described opponent of homosexuality”, and he rejects climate change, even going so far as to investigate scientists for “fraud” while in office as Attorney General.
And now he is Trump’s pick to head our immigration system. Despite having never worked for USCIS, Cuccinelli now heads up an agency of 19,000 employees and contractors. Unlike Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), USCIS is not in charge of policing or enforcing immigration laws. Their task is to adjudicate the hundreds of thousands of immigration applications filed each year, and to attempt to do so in as efficient and fair a manner as possible.
So what can we expect from Cuccinelli as Acting Director of USCIS? Ur Jaddou, former chief counsel at USCIS rhetorically asked an NPR reporter “Are they trying to break the system so it doesn’t work?” (Link 3). Jaddou, and many other immigration attorneys, suspect that Cuccinelli’s appointment will result in harsher scrutiny of immigration applications, and subsequently longer wait times.
I, for one, have a hard time believing that Cuccinelli will encourage fair adjudication of all immigration applications, especially of those coming from Mexico and Central America. It’s hard for me to forget that the man whose opening email to his new employees at USCIS read “Our nation has the most generous legal immigration system in the world and we must zealously safeguard its promise for those who lawfully come here” is the same man who when interviewed on Breitbart last year stated “You don’t have to keep ’em. . . No catch and release, no nothing. You just point ’em back across the river, and let ’em swim for it.” (thanks to NPR for that doozy of a quote).
Interestingly enough, it’s not just immigration advocates who oppose Cuccinelli’s appointment. Many conservatives have expressed their disagreement with Trump’s choice. Washington’s Top News (wtop) quoted Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas as saying “He’s made a career attacking other Republicans and frankly attacking President Trump. I doubt he will have the support to be confirmed” (link 4). This sentiment was supported by Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and Marco Rubio who all expressed negative views of Trump’s decision (reporting by The Hill – read all their arguments at link 4)
This is important because Cuccinelli is currently serving only as the Acting Director. In order for his appointment to become permanent he will need to be confirmed by the Republican controlled senate. There are 100 seats in the senate. Currently there are 53 Republican held seats and 45 Democratic seats, plus 2 independents who according to senate.gov “both caucus with the Democrats”, so we’ll call the numbers 53 to 47. Assuming that all the Democratic senators vote against his confirmation, and the two independents, only six Republican votes against Cuccinelli would be needed to deny his confirmation. We’ve already listed four prominent names in the republican party as being vocally against his confirmation, and others have also expressed doubts.
While he may not be confirmed by the Senate, Cuccinelli still holds a position of power over our immigration system and this is worth being aware of. He has confidently written about his plan to “work to find long-term solutions to close asylum loopholes that encourage many to make the dangerous journey into the United States” (link 2) and though it remains to be seen how he enacts this plan, I somehow doubt it will be either efficient or fair. As Cuccinelli begins to really take charge of the agency, I urge you to pay attention.
I also urge you to remember that USCIS is in charge of a lot more than just The Border. The agency handles immigration applications of all types from people of all nationalities. It handles work visas, travel visas, residency renewals and naturalization. Cuccinelli might be full of big ideas about how to deal with the “crisis” at our southern border, but our immigration system is much much bigger than just that. As we learn more about the steps Cuccinelli takes with USCIS I will continue to write about it, but in the meantime keep noticing and reading and thinking.
If you have any questions, comments or topic requests feel free to email me at thecommonthieme@gmail.com.
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Cuccinelli
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/ken-cuccinelli-wanted-to-end-birthright-citizenship-and-militarize-bordernow-hes-trumps-immigration-chief
- https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/731416278/trump-administration-taps-hardliner-cuccinelli-for-top-immigration-job
- https://wtop.com/government/2019/06/ken-cuccinelli-takes-over-as-acting-director-of-citizenship-and-immigration-services/
Brilliant reporting! I appreciate the insights and research.