Anti-LGBTQ Ken Cuccinelli Expected to Head U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

President Donald Trump’s new expected head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has a long history of anti-LGBTQ views and actions, potentially harming LGBTQ citizens and immigrants alike.

President Trump was expected to name Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia, as the head of coordinating the Trump administration’s immigration policies – a role President Trump had been considering creating for months, according to the New York Times.

However, two people briefed on the situation told the New York Times days later that Cuccinelli would actually be taking over for L. Francis Cissna as head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Cuccinelli has a history of being harsh on immigration, something Cecilia Munoz, the director of the domestic policy council in the Obama administration, said was concerning.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Munoz said. “The president is trying to send an even tougher message, but ultimately these things are symbols just in the same way the wall is a symbol. Even if you are desperate to show how tough you are, you’re not likely to produce a policy that addresses the problems at the border or the interior.”

Cuccinelli’s history as an immigration hard-liner includes supporting legislation to deny citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants and another proposal to allow employers to fire workers who don’t speak English on the job.

Not only is Cuccinelli historically anti-immigrant, but anti-LGBTQ, as well, according to LGBTQ Nation. In 2013, he launched a website called “VAChildPredators,” which listed the name of those convicted of sodomy in the hopes of equating homosexuality to pedophilia. He’s also insisted that same-sex couples don’t have the right to adopt and has tried, unsuccessfully, to eliminate LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections at state colleges and universities.

“When you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul,” Cuccinelli said in 2008. Cuccinelli later doubled down on these beliefs in 2013, saying they “haven’t changed.”

With the Trump administration attacking LGBTQ immigrants as of late, by preventing children born overseas to same-sex American parents being denied U.S. citizenship and placing LGBTQ detainees in solitary confinement without reason, Cuccinelli’s potential role, combined with his anti-LGBTQ views, may pose serious problems for LGBTQ immigrants and citizens.

Cuccinelli may not be confirmed, however, due to a potential obstacle he’ll face from Mitch McConnell. In 2014, Cuccinelli was part of a political action committee supporting a primary challenge to McConnell. A source close to McConnell told the New York Times that Cuccinelli wouldn’t make it through the confirmation process.

However, if not confirmed, Cuccinelli is still expected to have a role at the Department of Homeland Security.