Senior Director for Transborder Security sounds\nlike a serious job with big responsibilities. So who has the Biden\nadministration hired to fill it? A public relations officer at the United\nNations\u2019 refugee agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Katie Tobin<\/a> has scant experience in the security field, she is billed as “an expert on asylum seekers and refugees.\u201d<\/a> Since her days as an immigrant\/refugee caseworker in 2004, Tobin has held several immigration positions in and out of government. Most recently she was external relations officer for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees<\/a> (UNHCR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tobin\u2019s skill set would seem a more logical fit\nat U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where she once helped adjudicate\nasylum claims and conducted credible-fear interviews. By slotting her into a\ntop director position under the National Security Council (NSC), Team Biden is\ntaking \u201ctransborder security\u201d in a different direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy putting a U.N. refugee activist in the position, the Biden White House has made it clear that it will work to serve the needs of refugee activists, not the security of America\u2019s borders,\u201d says Brian Lonergan<\/a>, of the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither Tobin nor the administration has commented on her appointment. But Tobin\u2019s former immigration court colleagues in Arlington, Va., who called her a \u201chuman rights expert,\u201d posted congratulations<\/a>: \u201cGreat news for America. You make us all proud!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lonergan isn\u2019t so enthused.\n\u201c[The administration] is embracing and implementing the United Nations\u2019 global\nview of what our immigration laws should look like. That may serve the best\ninterests of the U.N., foreign governments, big business and other entities,\nbut it is certainly not in the best interests of the United States and its\ncitizens,\u201d he stated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, the UNHCR,\nTobin\u2019s former employer, has demanded that the U.S. broaden its definition of\nrefugee, to essentially open its southern border to meritless asylum-seekers.\nThe agency steadfastly opposes any efforts to limit mass migration and condemns asylum\nrules aimed at preventing fraud and reducing illegal immigration at the\nsouthern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On cue, the Biden administration is expected to increase refugee admissions nearly 10-fold to 125,000 per year<\/a>. More dangerously, the president has lifted travel restrictions<\/a> on terrorist-sponsoring countries, dismissing the list of countries that was compiled by the Obama administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How effectively Ms. Tobin\nintends to address the ongoing challenges and threats to \u201ctransborder security\u201d\nwill be of more than passing interest in the months to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senior Director for Transborder Security sounds like a serious job with big responsibilities. So who has the Biden administration hired to fill it? A public relations officer at the United Nations\u2019 refugee agency. Though Katie Tobin has scant experience in the security field, she is billed as “an expert on asylum seekers and refugees.\u201d Since<\/p>\n