Fierce resistance

‘He’s Cruella de Vil’: State Department nominee meets fierce resistance

By NATASHA KORECKI

Human rights groups and faith organizations incensed over the nomination of Ronald Mortensen, the Trump administration’s pick for a State Department post overseeing refugees, are mounting fierce resistance to his appointment.

Describing him as an “anti-immigrant zealot,” the groups — part of the We Are All America coalition — have deployed field workers in 9 states, employed Hill letter-writing and call-in campaigns, scheduled in-district events during the August recess, and are lobbying Senate Foreign Relations Committee members.

It’s all part of a coordinated campaign to persuade the Trump administration to pull the plug on Mortensen’s nomination even before he sits for a formal hearing.

“He’s from central casting. He’s Cruella de Vil,” said Joshua Hoyt, co-chair of the National Partnership for New Americans, among the groups banding together to block the Mortensen nomination. “He’s triggered a real, significant, grassroots organizing campaign. This is not a decimation of our refugee infrastructure, it is a destruction of it.”

In May, Trump nominated Mortensen, a fellow at the hard-line Center for Immigration Studies, to become the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. The position would oversee refugee resettlement and help administer humanitarian resources in a division that makes up nearly a third of the State Department’s budget.

But Mortensen’s prolific writings and charged comments supporting reduced immigration have drawn the ire of migrant communities. Mortensen once accused Arizona Sen. John McCain of “rolling out the welcome mat for ISIS on America’s Southern Border,” and once declared that “most illegal aliens routinely commit felonies.”

The effort to stop Mortensen, Hoyt said, symbolizes a larger fight over the future of administration nominees.

“There are a lot of people in this country who will not lie down while they saw off the right arm of the Statue of Liberty. A majority of people in the United States believe we are a nation of refuge for those fleeing violence and persecution,” he said. “Defeating the nomination of Ronald Mortensen, an anti-immigrant zealot, will send a message there are boundaries — even in this political climate — of who can be nominated to serve in the key position dealing with the millions of people displaced by war and climate and disasters around the world.”

Last week, 57 Democratic members of Congress signed onto a letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling for the withdrawal of Mortensen’s nomination.

The pushback comes against the backdrop of a broader policy issue involving the U.S. refugee resettlement program. President Barack Obama toward the end of his tenure sought to lift the cap on U.S. refugee admissions to 110,000 from 70,000 people a year. The Trump administration eventually lowered the cap on refugee admissions to 45,000 a year, but because of bureaucratic and other hurdles that Trump and his aides have imposed, it appears that fewer than half that many refugees will be admitted.

While Trump has appointed others from the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a “hate group,” this is the first CIS nominee who would necessitate Senate confirmation.

In nominating Mortensen, the administration noted he is a retired Foreign Service Officer who “has worked on humanitarian responses that saved lives and alleviated the suffering of millions of people in Iraq, Syria, Mali, Libya, Haiti, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and many other countries in West Africa.”

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, held up Mortensen’s longtime work overseas bringing aid to refugees and cast the opposition as nothing more than highly-charged rhetoric from the left.

“It’s not a surprising that the anti-border groups have their hair on fire. If the administration nominated Mother Teresa they’d say she’s a racist and a crank,” Krikorian said. “I take all of this nonsense with a grain of salt.”

Krikorian said the opposition is less about Mortensen and more about the direction the administration is heading on refugee resettlement.

“In a sense, Mortensen, and the opposition to Mortensen’s nomination is almost a pretext to attack the president’s policies. They’re trying to block the consequences of the election,” Krikorian said. “The administration clearly wants to shift its emphasis on refugee protection from resettlement here to somewhere in the region from where they’re seeking refuge … Given that perspective, Ron Mortensen is the ideal candidate. The guy has spent a couple of decades feeding the poor, housing the homeless. The guy has been working … in Africa, in the Middle East, in Haiti. He’s gone places most of his critics have never gone.”

Mortensen’s past remarks on immigration, Krikorian argues, have little to do with what the new position would entail.

But Basma Alawee, a field worker for We Are All America who is helping organize opposition to Mortensen’s nomination in Florida — a state which has settled 173,000 refugees in the last five years — called Mortensen’s past remarks about immigrants disqualifying.

“This person is anti-immigrant, anti-refugee,” said Alawee, a refugee herself from Iraq. “Why would you bring someone who has no passion for these people and make him have power over them?”