Harvard’s Sunstein Joins Biden’s DHS to Shape Immigration Rules

(Bloomberg) -- Former Obama administration official Cass Sunstein on Monday joined the Department of Homeland Security, where President Joe Biden is moving rapidly to roll back Donald Trump’s immigration policy priorities.

Sunstein is a senior counselor who will be responsible for making sure that the rules put forward by the department and its agencies are based on evidence and consistent with the law, an administration official said.

Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard University, was administrator of President Barack Obama’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from 2009 to 2012. His work with Biden dates back three decades to when Biden was the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Commission and Sunstein weighed in on judicial nominations and constitutional interpretation.

Biden is unwinding Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policies that advocacy groups denounced as too restrictive, unfair and cruel. Biden also is pushing for Congress to pass a comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system.

Progressives raised concerns last month about Sunstein’s rumored plans to join the administration, pointing to what they described as a record of blocking and slowing regulations during his years in the Obama administration.

Groups that raised objections included the Revolving Door Project and the Center for Progressive Reform. They may be relieved to see him joining the Department of Homeland Security, rather than taking on a wide-reaching regulatory role, as they’d speculated he might. Biden has not yet announced his nominee to lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Sunstein has been a Bloomberg Opinion contributor since 2012. Bloomberg Opinion and Bloomberg News are both part of Bloomberg LP. A Bloomberg spokesman declined to comment.

In 2018, Sunstein received the Holberg Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities, from Norway’s government. He also worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

Sunstein’s wife, Samantha Power, is Biden’s nominee for administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Power’s financial disclosures showed Sunstein earning consulting fees from Apple Inc. and Global Asset Capital LLC, as well as advisory fees and stock options from Humu, Inc. He also reported royalties from dozens of book publications.

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