More DHS Appointments Announced

[babylonsister]

http://lostintransition.nationaljournal.com/2009/02/more-dhs-appointments.php

More DHS Appointments Announced

On Monday, President Obama announced the nomination of John Morton as assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Morton is currently serving as the acting deputy assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division at the Justice Department and has specialized in immigration enforcement.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also named Esther Olavarria as deputy assistant secretary for policy. Olavarria is joining DHS from the Center for American Progress, where she was a senior fellow and director of immigration policy.

See complete biographies, per the DHS press office, after the jump.

John Morton

Morton is a career official at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with lengthy experience in immigration enforcement and criminal prosecution. He began his career as a trial attorney in the honors program in 1994 and now serves as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division.

From September 2007 until last month, he was Acting Chief of the Domestic Security Section and Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, and prior to that, he was Deputy Chief of the Domestic Security Section. In these roles, he was responsible for the prosecution of criminal cases and the development of DOJ policy in the areas of immigration crime, particularly human smuggling and complex passport and visa frauds; human rights offenses, particularly torture, war crimes, genocide, and the use of child soldiers; and international violent crime, particularly violent crime under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.

From 1999 to 2006, he was as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Major Crimes and Terrorism Units of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prior to that, he served for two and a half years as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, focusing primarily on immigration matters.

Esther Olavarria

Olavarria brings nearly 20 years of experience on immigration policy to her new job at the Department of Homeland Security. Most recently, she was a Senior Fellow and Director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress, where she was responsible for planning, developing and administering the organization's work on immigration issues, with a principal focus on policy and advocacy strategies on comprehensive immigration reform; planning and convening roundtables and other venues for discussion, and conducting research and write on immigration issues.

Prior to that, for nearly ten years, she was Counsel to Sen. Edward Kennedy and the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees. In that capacity, she served as Senator Kennedy's chief counsel on immigration, border security, refugee and nationality matters, working on myriad immigration proposals, including comprehensive immigration reform.

She has also served as the Managing Attorney of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, Directing Attorney of the American Immigration Lawyers Association Pro Bono Project, and staff attorney at the Haitian Refugee Center, all based in Miami, Florida.