President Nominates New ICE Director

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan testifies before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs on November 30, 2016. Photo by Glenn Fawcett/U.S. Customs and Border Protection

President Donald Trump said last month that he wanted to go in a “tougher direction” in immigration enforcement. That is when he announced that he withdrawing the nomination of Ronald Vitiello to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Yesterday, the President announced that he is nominating Mark Morgan to run ICE.  Morgan supports the border wall and says Congress could enact a legislative solution to address 85% of the border “crisis.”

In an interview last week with The Daily Signal, before the nomination, Morgan said illegal immigration must be tackled from two sides. “First of all, it’s absolutely a national emergency and here’s a couple things,” Morgan said. “One thing gets lost in the narrative … they really only talk about one element of the crisis and that’s the humanitarian side, and what’s lost is it’s a dual crisis. It’s both a humanitarian and national security threat.”

PBS News Hour offers additional background on Morgan.  He is a former U.S. Border Patrol head and has been an outspoken supporter of a border wall and Trump’s broader immigration agenda.  A former Marine, Morgan entered law enforcement in 1995 as a Los Angeles police officer. He became an FBI special agent a year later.

During his time at the FBI office in Los Angeles, Morgan supervised a task force that focused on the gang MS-13 gang.

In 2014, Morgan, while still at the FBI, joined Customs and Border Protection in a temporary capacity as the acting assistant commissioner for internal affairs.

In 2016, he was tapped to head U.S. Border Patrol. At the time, FBI Director James Comey praised Morgan’s “outstanding investigative work and leadership.”

Morgan left Border Patrol less than a year later, when the Trump administration asked him to resign. No official reason for the resignation was given, but the National Border Patrol Council, which had a close relationship with Trump, was publicly critical of Morgan.  Morgan had been the first outsider appointed to lead the Border Patrol, a decision that upset many in the agency.

KJ