The U.S. Senate confirmed Lee Francis Cissna as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on October 5, 2017. The vote was 55-43 in favor of Mr. Cissna’s confirmation.

Mr. Cissna most recently helped write the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2015, a bill that would have dramatically enlarged the enforcement authority of the U.S. Department of Labor and restricted H-1B and L-1 visa requirements and benefits. He also helped draft the American Job Creation and Investment Promotion Reform Act of 2015, which included an array of what have come to be known as EB-5 “integrity” measures.

Most recently, Mr. Cissna was Director of Immigration Policy in the Office of Policy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Before serving in that position, Mr. Cissna served in USCIS’s Office of the Chief Counsel. Before that, he was an attorney in private practice in the immigration group of the law firm of Kaufman & Canoles in Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Cissna also served in the U.S. Department of State as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer stationed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Stockholm, Sweden. Before that, he was an attorney in the international trade practice group at the law firms of Steptoe & Johnson LLP and Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP. Mr. Cissna graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a BS in physics and political science; Columbia University with an MA in international affairs; and Georgetown University Law Center with a JD.

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