Cuccinelli Appointment as Acting USCIS Director Was Unlawful, Judge Rules

Elliot Setzer
Monday, March 2, 2020, 4:10 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on March 1 that President Trump’s appointment of Ken Cuccinelli as acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) director violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said that Cuccinelli was never eligible to become acting USCIS chief because he did not originally act as “first assistant” to the previous USCIS director under the statute, and therefore suspended two policies Cuccinelli had implemented as head of the agency.

You can read the decision here and below.


Elliot Setzer is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford Law School and a Ph.D student at Yale University. He previously worked at Lawfare and the Brookings Institution.

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