President Biden Nominates Leaders for DHS Components

On April 12, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his nominations to fill top posts in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The administration has also made changes to the DHS advisory board as pressure builds to handle the influx of migrants to the southern border.

Approximately 21,000 unaccompanied migrant children are in federal custody as of Monday, and thousands are being held in overcrowded holding cells. The influx of migrants presents a major challenge for DHS, which takes in the migrant children before they are placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Biden administration has removed a majority of the Department of Homeland Security’s independent advisory board, including members appointed by both Democrats and Republicans. In a letter to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas explained, “In the service of an orderly transition to a new model for the HSAC, I have ended the term of current HSAC members effective March 26, 2021. I will reconstitute the HSAC in the next few weeks, once the new model has been developed.”

On Monday, the White House announced several nominees to fill key DHS leadership positions, including the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

A position without a nominee is the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Leon Rodriguez, USCIS director under the Obama administration, told the LA Times, “It’s a hard job to fill” and John Sandweg, former acting ICE director and general counsel at DHS ,said that the main priorities are filling CBP and USCIS since they have been impacted hardest by the border surge.

Chris Magnus, currently the police chief for Tucson, AZ, is the nominee for CBP commissioner. He was previously the police chief in Richmond, CA, which recorded its lowest homicide rate in 30 years under his leadership.

Ur Jaddou, an immigration attorney, is the nominee for director of USCIS. She previously served as the director of DHS Watch, a nonprofit accountability project.

Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum, said Jaddou’s nomination and President Biden’s other nominations “will bring needed leadership to parts of the administration that have their work cut out for them.”

Jen Easterly is the nominee for director of CISA. She previously served as a counterterrorism official at the White House and National Security Agency, and is an Army veteran with experience in intelligence and cyber operations.

In response to Easterly’s nomination, Representative John Katko (R-NY), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said, “CISA has found itself at the forefront of two significant, national cyber incidents in just the last few months… [Easterly] brings substantial credibility and a reputation of working productively between government and the private sector to increase the cybersecurity resilience of the nation.”

The nominees will all need to be confirmed by the Senate before assuming their roles.