President Biden will nominate Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson, Ariz., and a critic of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration insuranc
President Biden will nominate Chris Magnus, the police chief of Tucson, Ariz., and a critic of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration insurance policies, to guide Customs and Border Safety, certainly one of six new installments of management on the Division of Homeland Safety.
The nominations unveiled on Monday additionally embrace prime cybersecurity officers, an indication of the administration’s intent to prioritize cyberattacks as a prime nationwide safety menace. Jen Easterly, Morgan Stanley’s head of resilience and a former senior official on the Nationwide Safety Company, was tapped to guide the Homeland Safety Division’s cybersecurity department, and Robert Silvers, a prime cybersecurity official on the division through the Obama administration, was picked to be below 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 Nationwide Safety Council senior director for Afghanistan and Pakistan, to function deputy secretary.
Ur Jaddou, who labored as chief counsel at Citizenship and Immigration Providers earlier than main an immigration advocacy group, was tapped to guide the immigration company.
The officers would work below Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the primary immigrant to run the division accountable not just for border safety and immigration insurance policies, but additionally offering a coordinated protection in opposition to terrorism, maritime, aviation and cybersecurity threats. In the course of the Trump administration, the division was riddled with vacancies and interim leaders and was accused of getting 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 right into a politically divisive problem dealing with the Biden administration: learn how to deal with a file variety of border crossings which might be projected to extend within the coming months. The administration has failed to soundly transfer 1000’s of youngsters and youngsters from jails run by the Border Patrol into shelters all through the US.
Members of Congress have referred to as for extra accountability measures at Customs and Border Safety after it was revealed in 2019 that dozens of border brokers had joined personal Fb teams and different 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 Workplace of the Inspector Normal for its aggressive ways in opposition to protesters in Portland, Ore.
Mr. Biden, who campaigned on rising oversight at Customs and Border Safety, which oversees the Border Patrol, selected not a veteran of the company however moderately a progressive police chief who promoted neighborhood policing efforts whereas overseeing departments in Tucson and Richmond, Calif. Mr. Biden was compelled to decide on him due to these efforts to reform departments, in addition to his latest work policing a metropolis near the U.S.-Mexico border, in response to a White Home official.
Mr. Magnus additionally publicly criticized the immigration insurance policies of former president Donald J. Trump and his lawyer basic Jeff Classes as hindering police efforts to crack down on crime.
“The cruel anti-immigrant rhetoric and Mr. Classes’s reckless insurance policies ignore a fundamental actuality recognized by most good cops and prosecutors,” Mr. Magnus wrote in a New York Instances opinion piece in 2017. “If persons are afraid of the police, in the event that they worry they could change into separated from their households or harshly interrogated primarily based on their immigration standing, they received’t report crimes or come ahead 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. Final June, he abruptly supplied to resign as chief of the Tucson police whereas releasing a video during which a 27-year-old Latino man, Carlos Ingram Lopez, died in custody. Mayor Regina Romero expressed confidence in Mr. Magnus and saved him on the job.
Mr. Magnus final 12 months additionally declined to just accept 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 guide Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the company that investigates intercourse and drug trafficking organizations and deports undocumented immigrants.