Quick Facts
Biography
Lee Francis Cissna is Director of Immigration Policy in the Office of Policy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is President Donald Trump's nominee for Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Education
Cissna graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in physics and political science. He also attended Columbia University and obtained a Master of Arts (M.A.) in international affairs, as well as Georgetown University Law Center, where he received his Juris Doctor (J.D.).
Career
Public sector
Cissna worked at the U.S. Department of State, serving as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer stationed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Stockholm, Sweden. He also worked in the Office of the Chief Counsel under U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Cissna is currently Director of Immigration Policy in the Office of Policy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, creating and administering policy focused on immigration benefits programs, including with respect to temporary workers and immigrants. He was also Chair of the OECD Working Party on Migration.
Private sector
Cissna was an attorney at the law firm of Kaufman & Canoles in Richmond, Virginia, working in the immigration group. He also practiced law at Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP in their international trade practice group.
Nomination
On April 8, 2017, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Cissna as Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. That agency is under the Department of Homeland Security, where Cissna currently works as director of immigration policy in the Office of Policy.
The Trump administration has been interested in Cissna due to his work on the displacement of U.S. workers by foreign workers on H-1B visas. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, stated that Cissna is "very knowledgeable about the immigration system" and knows "all of the wrinkles of this stuff."
On April 25, 2017, Cissna's nomination was received in the U.S. Senate and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Activities
- Attending Expert, Institute for the Study of International Migration, "Highly Skilled Migration: STEM Supply and Policy Challenges," Georgetown University, 2014