President Joe Biden announced his intended nominees for key Department of Homeland Security (DHS) positions this week, including his picks to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

  • USCIS director. The White House said Biden intends to nominate Ur Mendoza Jaddou to be director of USCIS. Jaddou served as chief counsel for USCIS from June 2014 to January 2017. Previously, she served as counsel to U.S. House of Representative Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Chief Counsel to the House Immigration Subcommittee and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional, Global and Functional Affairs in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the U.S. State Department. More recently, Jaddou was director at DHS Watch, an America’s Voice organization dedicated to promoting good governance, transparency and accountability in immigration policy.
  • CBP commissioner. Biden intends to nominate Chris Magnus as CBP commissioner. Magnus is currently the Police chief in Tucson, Arizona, near the U.S.-Mexico border. Over the course of his career in law enforcement, Magnus served in various ranks in the Lansing Police Department in Lansing, Mich., before serving as police chief in in Fargo, N.D., Richmond, Calif., and then Tucson. The White House said that in his career Magnus developed a “reputation as a progressive police leader who focused on relationship-building between the police and community, implementing evidence-based best practices, promoting reform, and insisting on police accountability.”

Additional Information: Both nominations are subject to Senate confirmation. Biden has not yet announced a pick for director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Biden’s pick for Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, was confirmed by the Senate in February.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice group. For additional information, please contact berryapplemanleiden@bal.com.

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