A clash may be brewing between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
The president appears to have chosen the next director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the nominee is precisely the candidate McConnell told Trump not to pick: Ken Cuccinelli.
Immigration shakeup continues
It was just on Friday that the agency’s current director, Lee Francis Cissna, announced that he plans to down from his post, at the request of President Trump. According to reports, the move was part of a broader realignment of immigration officials across the administration.
Last month, Cissna took over for Ronald Vitiello, and now the man expected to replace Cissna is Ken Cuccinelli. The former attorney general of Virginia, Cuccinelli is widely considered to be an immigration hardliner.
If ultimately installed in the position, Cuccinelli would essentially be the supervisor of America’s system of lawful immigration, overseeing things such as the handling of asylum claims and the processing of citizenship.
Confirmation battle ahead?
For Cuccinelli to get the job, though, he would have to be confirmed by Mitch McConnell’s Senate, and if there is anyone that McConnell didn’t want the president to choose, it was Cuccinelli.
McConnell indicated as much in April when Cuccinelli was menti0ned as a candidate to replace Department of Homeland Security (DHS) head Kirstjen Nielsen.
When asked about potential replacements for Nielsen, McConnell replied, “I’ve not spoken to him [President Trump] about any of them. I have expressed my, shall I say, lack of enthusiasm for one of them…Ken Cuccinelli.”
There appears to be some hostility between McConnell, along with other Republicans, and Trump’s nominee that stems from when Cuccinelli was in charge of the Senate Conservatives Fund. This is a group that supported Matt Bevin — now the Republican governor of Kentucky — who challenged McConnell in the 2014 primary for his Senate seat.
Stage is set
Ordinarily, you would expect the president’s nomination for such an agency to be a shoo-in. But, the bad blood between Cuccinelli and McConnell may make things a bit more difficult.
In his announcement, Cissna said that he will formally vacate his office on June 1.
But, the question now is whether Cuccinelli will be the one who will take the reins.
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