Share
Cuccinelli’s Appt to Top Immigration Job Was Unlawful Judge Rules
A federal judge on Sunday March 1, 2020, ruled that Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, was unlawfully appointed.
U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss ruled Sunday that Trump’s appointment last year of Ken Cuccinelli to be head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was a violation of federal vacancy laws, and that Cuccinelli lacked the authority to issue policy directives tightening asylum rules..... violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 when it placed Cuccinelli, a conservative activist and former attorney general of Virginia, in charge of the agency that runs the nation’s legal immigration system.
The ruling amounts to a rebuke of Trump’s stated preference for filling top administration jobs with officials serving in an “acting” capacity.
Stick with us here: the guy trying to kick out immigrants for not having right paperwork turns out to not have right paperwork himself.
Immigrant advocacy groups sued the administration last year on behalf of five Honduran asylum seekers — two adults and three children — who challenged the legality of the new restrictions on multiple grounds. Moss’s ruling addressed the first of their claims: that Cuccinelli lacked the authority to change U.S. asylum policies in the first place.
Moss agreed, writing that the vacancy rules require a federal agency’s “first assistant” to assume leadership when the top job is open.
“Cuccinelli’s appointment fails to comply with the (law) for a more fundamental and clear-cut reason: he never did and never will serve in a subordinate role — that is, as an ‘assistant’ — to any other USCIS official,” Moss wrote.
This could have immediate impacts as any policies put in place by Cuccinelli are immediately voided. Hopefully this holds.
....the policy memos he signed should be “set aside.” Those include measures in July to reduce the amount of time afforded to asylum seekers to seek legal counsel after crossing the border and to restrict the ability of U.S. asylum officers to grant applicants extensions.
The implications of the judge’s ruling were unclear Sunday for other policy moves and administrative decisions made by Cuccinelli.... remains in the top job at USCIS, and he is serving as the second-ranking official at the Department of Homeland Security....
Senior staffers at DHS and USCIS have repeatedly expressed doubts about the legality of Cuccinelli’s authority, with several unclear about where he actually works.