US Senate confirms activist of Mexican origin as director of the Immigration Service

The US Senate confirmed director of the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to the lawyer of Mexican-Iraqi origin Ur Mendoza Jaddou, the first woman to be in charge of that entity.

By a vote of 47 to 34, the activist became the first person approved by the Senate since 2019 to take over the position, which has not had an acting director in more than two years.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alexander N. Senior, highlighted through a statement that Mendoza Jaddou has more than two decades of experience in immigration law, policy and administration, and trusted that he "will administer the Immigration system in a fair and equitable manner."

“As the daughter of hard-working immigrants, Ur understands how immigrant families enrich our country and the challenges they face. “I want to thank the United States Senate for confirming Ur. I look forward to working closely with her to rebuild and restore trust in our immigration system,” Mayorkas said.

Likewise, she stated that she will be the first woman and the first of Arab and Mexican descent to lead that agency, in charge of managing the immigration system and naturalization processes in the country.

Mendoza Jaddou was nominated for the position last May by the president Joe Biden, who stressed that the activist had served as director of DHS Watch, a project of the America's Voice organization that advocated for immigration reform in the United States.

In that space he shed light on “immigration policies and administration that did not adhere to basic principles of good governance, transparency and accountability” in previous administrations, Biden said.

Upon his nomination, Mendoza Jaddou appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee where he said he would focus on returning USCIS to a stronger financial footing after the agency asked Congress for a $1 billion bailout last year.

He also promised to address crippling delays in USCIS processing times that have left hundreds of thousands of would-be immigrants in limbo.

Now, Mendoza Jaddou faces several challenges at the head of USCIS, after President Biden reversed the 'zero tolerance' policy implemented by his antecesor Donald Trump.

The president has among his objectives to restore due immigration process, improve the asylum policy and decongest the Immigration Court, which has 1.3 million pending cases.

Another great challenge is to stop the undocumented immigration on the border with Mexico, where the arrival of undocumented immigrants has increased since Biden assumed the presidency.

Ur Mendoza is currently an associate professor of law at American University, Washington College of Law and an attorney at Potomac Law Group, PLLC.

The federal agency he will lead now has about 16,700 employees, of whom 13,400 saw their jobs threatened last year due to lack of funding.