President Biden will nominate Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson, Ariz., and a critic of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, to lead Customs and Border Protection, one of six new installments of management on the Department of Homeland Security.
The nominations unveiled on Monday additionally embody high cybersecurity officers, a signal of the administration’s intent to prioritize cyberattacks as a high nationwide safety risk. Jen Easterly, Morgan Stanley’s head of resilience and a former senior official on the National Security Agency, was tapped to lead the Homeland Security Department’s cybersecurity department, and Robert Silvers, a high cybersecurity official on the division in the course of the Obama administration, was picked to be underneath secretary for coverage.
Mr. Biden can even nominate Jonathan Meyer, one other Obama administration official, to return to the division as basic counsel, and John Tien, the previous National Security Council senior director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, to function deputy secretary.
Ur Jaddou, who labored as chief counsel at Citizenship and Immigration Services earlier than main an immigration advocacy group, was tapped to lead the immigration company.
The officers would work underneath Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the primary immigrant to run the division accountable not just for border safety and immigration policies, but in addition offering a coordinated protection in opposition to terrorism, maritime, aviation and cybersecurity threats. During the Trump administration, the division was riddled with vacancies and interim leaders and was accused of having a unilateral give attention to the border with Mexico, whether or not or not it’s separating youngsters from their mother and father or constructing a wall there.
If confirmed, Mr. Magnus would step into a politically divisive problem going through the Biden administration: how to deal with a record number of border crossings which might be projected to improve within the coming months. The administration has failed to safely transfer 1000’s of youngsters and youngsters from jails run by the Border Patrol into shelters all through the United States.
Members of Congress have known as for added accountability measures at Customs and Border Protection after it was revealed in 2019 that dozens of border brokers had joined private Facebook groups and other social media pages that included obscene photographs of Hispanic lawmakers and threats to members of Congress. D.H.S. has additionally confronted an investigation from the division’s Office of the Inspector General for its aggressive ways in opposition to protesters in Portland, Ore.
Mr. Biden, who campaigned on rising oversight at Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, selected not a veteran of the company however quite a progressive police chief who promoted neighborhood policing efforts whereas overseeing departments in Tucson and Richmond, Calif. Mr. Biden was compelled to select him as a result of of these efforts to reform departments, in addition to his current work policing a metropolis shut to the U.S.-Mexico border, in accordance to a White House official.
Mr. Magnus additionally publicly criticized the immigration policies of former president Donald J. Trump and his lawyer basic Jeff Sessions as hindering police efforts to crack down on crime.
“The harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and Mr. Sessions’s reckless policies ignore a basic reality known by most good cops and prosecutors,” Mr. Magnus wrote in a New York Times opinion piece in 2017. “If people are afraid of the police, if they fear they may become separated from their families or harshly interrogated based on their immigration status, they won’t report crimes or come forward as witnesses.”
Mr. Magnus, who’s white and homosexual, acquired nationwide consideration when a {photograph} of him in uniform holding a Black Lives Matter signal throughout a protest in Richmond went viral. It additionally sparked criticism from the native police union. Last June, he abruptly offered to resign as chief of the Tucson police whereas releasing a video by which a 27-year-old Latino man, Carlos Ingram Lopez, died in custody. Mayor Regina Romero expressed confidence in Mr. Magnus and stored him on the job.
Mr. Magnus final 12 months additionally declined to settle for homeland safety “Stonegarden” grants issued to native police departments that help the federal authorities on border enforcement, after the Trump administration refused to permit a portion of the funds to be spent on humanitarian assist for asylum-seeking migrants.
The administration nonetheless has not nominated anybody to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the company that investigates intercourse and drug trafficking organizations and deports undocumented immigrants.
