Trump nominates Ronald Mortensen to head State
Department refugee program, by Ann Corcoran 5/25/18
Who is Ronald Mortensen?
I had never heard of him, but CNN and other outlets call him an
immigration hardliner,
a “fellow” at the Center
for Immigration Studies.
Clearly a Trump supporter in Romney
country, Mortensen said in August of 2016 that Trump is our only hope against
corrupt elites.
Doing
a quick scan of the Utah native’s writing at CIS, we see that he has mostly written about DACA and illegal alien issues, so his
experience with the refugee program is apparently limited.
The most recent op-ed I
found from him is from 6 months ago at The Hill about how to structure an amnesty for
the DACA ‘children’ entitled: Want to
pass the DREAM Act? Let’s combine mercy with justice Hmmmm?
As
a retired Foreign Service officer, he surely has a good feel for the countries
and cultures that feed in to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, and if
approved by the Senate (a very long shot!), he might be able to find some
experienced people to surround himself with who know where the problems are
with the USRAP.
Here
is one story from Deseret News: Trump nominates
Utahn to be an assistant secretary of state
SALT LAKE CITY — Utahn Ronald Mortensen was nominated by President
Donald Trump Thursday to serve as assistant secretary of state for population,
refugees and migration.
If his nomination is approved by the U.S. Senate, Mortensen, a retired Foreign
Service officer with the U.S. State Department, would head the U.S. State
Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
The
bureau’s mission “is to provide protection, ease suffering, and resolve the
plight of persecuted and uprooted people around the world on behalf of the
American people,” according to its website.
Mortensen has lobbied the Utah Legislature on identity theft and other
issues and supported Trump in 2016.He is a fellow at the Center for
Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan organization that bills itself as “low
immigration, pro-immigrant.”
He
has been described as continuing to respond to humanitarian crises around the
world, including in Mali and Iraq after being recognized by the State
Department for his courage during a civil war in Chad.
Mortensen,
a veteran who holds a doctorate degree, was on the White House advance team for
the 1986 summit between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev in Iceland that helped lead to an end to the Cold War.
As
time goes on, we will hear more about Mortensen. You can be sure that
the Refugee Council USA (the lobbying arm of the refugee
industry) will soon weigh in. (I haven’t seen anything from them yet.)
Readers
may not know that the last Republican (under GW Bush) to hold this
position, Ellen
Sauerbrey, only
got it through a recess appointment. Trump may have to go that route if he
wants to fight for Mortensen.
And,
then of course, if he is confirmed, the big question will be: Is he the man to push serious reform of the
entire program, or simply a place holder?
At
present, the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is headed by a
Stephen Miller acolyte, Andrew Veprek, as deputy assistant secretary—an assignment that
has the refugee industry in high dudgeon. Get out the popcorn, this should be a good show!
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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