By Louise Radnofsky
WASHINGTON—The new head of the U.S. legal immigration system is a devout defender of the Trump administration’s bid to remake U.S. immigration policy through the regulatory process, with a blunt message about the role of the agency he now leads.
While the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, said Ken Cuccinelli, installed last month as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, he sees it as his job to treat access as a privilege and not a right. “We are not a benefit agency, we are a vetting agency,” he said in an interview.
“We’re in our third century of this. It goes back to the 1800s,” Mr. Cuccinelli said, referring to a particular priority of the Trump administration: tightening the definition of what it means for an immigrant to become a “public charge,” a threshold that effectively defines who can enter the country, apply for citizenship or be deported.
A new rule on that topic from USCIS, which would then be used by the Departments of State and Justice, may come by the fall, said Mr. Cuccinelli, a conservative Republican and former attorney general of Virginia who made a failed bid for governor in 2013.
L. Francis Cissna, Mr. Cuccinelli’s predecessor in the role, was forced out amid vocal frustration from senior administration officials over regulatory changes not coming faster, and over the public-charge rule in particular. Mr. Cissna’s supporters said he had been working carefully to make changes that would last and was pursuing substance over style.
Immigrant advocates have said the administration is trying to do through regulations what it is not able to do through Congress: fundamentally rework American immigration policy to reject poorer immigrants from countries seen as less desirable, in keeping with older and subsequently reversed immigration restrictions, such as a 1924 law that effectively sought to curb Southern and Eastern European migration.
Mr. Cuccinelli maintains he is simply seeking to faithfully adhere to the current law. He says he knows from his father that his grandfather was a sponsor to two Italian cousins and took the obligation seriously by insisting they took the first job they found and learned English.
USCIS oversees visa programs to bring in workers that some U.S. employers view as vital to their operations, including in tech and agriculture, as well as the programs used by families to enter the U.S. and for immigrants to naturalize as American citizens. The agency is also in charge of regulations to address what President Trump has said are abuses of immigration laws that drive down wages and make the U.S. less secure.
Heavy users of the worker programs say they have experienced heightened scrutiny of applications and are bracing for regulatory restrictions that some contend will further complicate their ability to work. Mr. Cuccinelli responds that he wants his agency to be as cooperative as it can without sacrificing standards; he also says he sees only a limited role for international workers but that the administration is willing to help some companies bring them in.
“I don’t think it should be easier; I don’t necessarily think it should be harder” to bring in an international worker, he said, though he did say that his agency planned to allow fully electronic, end-to-end application processes for all visas by the end of 2020.
“We would rather have demand in place for American workers in these things; where American workers aren’t available, that’s an understandable need to be filled,” he said. “As the president has said many times, what we don’t want to see is the driving down of American wages in these fields by reducing the level of competition.”
In programs such as the coveted H-1B visa, used for highly skilled workers, the Trump administration has already demanded supporting evidence in many more applications, and denied more petitions. But certain companies, including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Intel Corp. have emerged with 99% approval rates, while others, such as informational technology services company Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. , have seen much higher rates of rejections. Mr. Cuccinelli signaled that such trends were likely to continue, as would a preference for returning workers rather than new petitioners.
“Given the overdemand in that space, it seems reasonable to reward those who’ve demonstrated a willingness to obey the rules. I’d go to a seniority system, for instance. And the same would be true with employers,” he added.
Mr. Cuccinelli, 50, was an unusually unpopular choice for a federal job, even among members of his own party, at least in part because he formerly headed the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that backed primary challenges to some Senate Republican candidates. Sitting senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have said they told the White House they were unenthusiastic about his appointment and hinted they couldn’t vote to confirm him.
White House officials and allies have questioned his expertise on a complicated area of law, a union representing rank-and-file employees of the USCIS have said he is unacceptable to them, and he hasn’t been formally nominated for the job.
Mr. Cuccinelli is unruffled. “I can’t say I’m terribly surprised” by the criticism, he said, adding that he was “new to federal service” and had already encountered “amazing headaches” in trying to work his way through rules on issues such as whether he could accept an offer of transportation to make a television appearance.
He also laughed at suggestions he was gunning for the job of Homeland Security Secretary, currently held on an interim basis by former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan.
Still, he said, he has plenty in common with Mr. Trump’s political approach—as well as his policy perspective.
“I wouldn’t say this administration suffers from subtlety, which I consider a positive,” Mr. Cuccinelli said. “No one has accused me of being terribly subtle over my years of public involvement either.”
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