Director of USCIS on “Modernizing Immigration”

In “Modernizing Immigration” a Foreign Policy Center Briefing, Alejandro Mayorkas, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Earlier this week talked about the aims of USCIS and, at the outset, tied it to his own background and experiences:

“[Attending some recent naturalization ceremonies]  harkens me back to a time in my own youth, when I was a young teenager and I myself was naturalized with my parents and my sister. My parents brought us to this country from Cuba in 1960. And we were refugees to this country. And so it is deeply moving for me to be here before you today, as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The fact that I myself was once a refugee to this country informs my views of our agency’s mission and the priorities that we will carry forward, during the time that I am privileged to serve. When I speak of the values of our agency and the mission, what I mean to suggest is a very important perspective that our agency must have. And that is that we must view our work through the eyes of the individuals who come before us and the eyes of the businesses who come before us, to seek benefits to which they are entitled. And as we do that, we must always keep in mind the most vulnerable of that group. And we must therefore dispense justice and fairness in the administration of the benefits that we are called upon to preside over.

In achieving a vision of public service for our agency, there are certain pillars that we must adhere to in our administration of benefits. One is integrity. Our processes, of course, must be true to our mission in every single respect. We must also achieve uniformity and consistency throughout our agency. We are one agency representing one nation. And it is a nation that historically has been, currently is, and forever will be welcoming to the people from all over the country, who seek to enter our nation for lawful purposes, albeit temporarily in some instances, but sometimes to make a life for themselves or sometimes to escape circumstances that drive them to live elsewhere, outside of their native homes.”

Mayorkas took questions from a group of reporters from around the world and reiterated the Obama administration support for comprehensive immigration reform, reducing backlogs, and improviving the efficiency of CIS.  He appeared to still be learning about the agency and spoke more in generalities than specifices, even when some of the questions asked for specifics (such as the current undocumented population in the United States).

KJ