Ken Cuccinelli said goodbye to USCIS, taking on a bigger Homeland Security role. But he’s back.

By Maria Sacchetti
12/13/2019, 7:15:21 p.m.

Ken Cuccinelli emailed his staff at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last month to say goodbye.

“Dear Colleagues,” Cuccinelli, the agency’s acting director, wrote in mid-November, according to a copy of the email. “Soon, I will begin serving as the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security. During this transition, Deputy Director Mark Koumans will serve as your acting director.”

Government officials quickly removed Cuccinelli from at least one federal lawsuit against the citizenship agency and replaced his signature with Koumans’s on the formal naturalization certificates handed to new citizens after their swearing-in ceremonies. Cuccinelli deactivated his “USCISCuccinelli” Twitter handle and switched to “HomelandKen.”

Then Cuccinelli quietly returned to the citizenship agency, and nobody will say why.

“No one knows who is in charge, even the people that work there,” said Jessica Marsden, an attorney for Protect Democracy, a Washington-based legal nonprofit. Protect Democracy filed a lawsuit on behalf of the city of Seattle and other nonprofits challenging, among other things, the legality of Cuccinelli’s appointment. “Who is calling the shots? It’s a mystery to us.”

It turns out that Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, is holding down both jobs — he is the acting deputy secretary of DHS and the acting director of USCIS, a subordinate agency within the department, according to spokesmen for both agencies. ...

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