Alan Bersin
The key administration officials recently installed by recess appointment can serve in their new jobs through the end of next year, but at least one of them says he plans to keep his job for much longer than that.
Alan Bersin, who last year became the Obama administration’s point man on border security issues, is now the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“I look forward to a good and candid and fruitful series of exchanges over the next number of years,” Bersin told a group of reporters on Wednesday, in his first face-to-face with the press since becoming commissioner.
Asked by Fox News whether that means he’s planning to be CBP commissioner beyond what the recess appointment allows, Bersin said: “Absolutely.”
Such a move would require Senate confirmation, but Bersin said he hopes to prove himself to skeptical members of Congress in the months ahead.
“[I] moved very proactively to not only build on Congressional relationships that I have had over many years but also to reach out across the aisle and across both houses to indicate my openness and eagerness to engage with Congress,” he told reporters. “Recess appointments have a history in all administrations, and I expect over time that people will come to see that it was a good choice, and I look forward to that. I look forward to earning that confidence with members of Congress.”
He is scheduled to testify before the House Appropriations Committee next week.
Bersin said he is “honored” to be CBP commissioner and to “work effectively every day with the men and women of CBP to enhance our service to the American people,” even if through a recess appointment.
“Not a single moment of hesitation on that,” he said.
In announcing the recess appointments of Bersin and 14 others on March 27, the White House accused Republicans of “obstructing” administration nominees, insisting that “partisan politics” was hindering “the basic functioning of government.”
“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disapprove of my nominees,” President Barack Obama said in a statement. “But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.”
Some of President Obama’s recess appointments faced strong opposition from Senate Republicans. In the run-up to the appointments, all 41 Senate Republicans wrote a letter to the White House urging President Obama not to use a recess appointment for a top labor official.
Bersin faced no such opposition.
Before joining the Obama administration, he served in a wide array of positions, including a stint as a private lawyer in Los Angeles, nearly five years as U.S. Attorney in Southern California, and more than a year as California’s Secretary of Education under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Nowadays, Bersin’s official photo is hanging in the lobby of CBP headquarters in Washington. However, it has yet to be added to the wall of the CBP conference room that hosted reporters on Wednesday.
Asked when he might join his two predecessors on the wall, Bersin didn’t have an exact answer.
“Well, we’ve got it down in the elevator lobby,” he said with a smile. “That’s a start.”