Following the withdrawal of CEO Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary, the Trump administration has nominated Alex Acosta, Harvard Law School graduate and Miami native, for the position. Andrew Puzder’s nomination was met with a bipartisan backlash, the Democrats citing his history as a businessman as controversial and unfit for Labor Secretary, while the Republicans found themselves upset over his employment of an undocumented woman.
Upon confirmation, Alex Acosta would become the only Hispanic member of Trump’s cabinet, and only the third Cuban-American cabinet member in history. Acosta graduated from Harvard Law before going on to work as a law clerk for Judge Alito on the Third Circuit, and was appointed by George W. Bush in 2003 and 2004 to work for the National Labor Relations Board. Acosta was also the first Hispanic man to serve as Assistant Attorney General.
In 2009, Alex Acosta was named the second dean of Florida International University’s Law School, a University that boasts it’s largely Hispanic population and has named itself a “home for undocumented and DACA students”. Moreover, students at FIU took to the streets of Washington, D.C in 2011 to lobby for extended protections for students under the DREAM Act.
Alex Acosta was Dean at @FIU, probably 1 of the schools w/highest number of students covered by DACA. I hope he speaks for them in Cabinet.
— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) February 16, 2017
Acosta’s experience among immigrants, as well as his background as a Cuban-America, is sure to bring an entirely new element to Trump’s cabinet that would not have been seen with Puzder as the Labor Secretary. However, many have criticized the pick as one that probably did not come from Trump himself; his absence at the press conference perhaps indicating it was a quick decision. He went on to make a poor joke regarding Acosta’s last name, wondering aloud if he was at all related to the CNN Senior White House correspondent.
Trump jokes he told staff to “go back & check the family tree” to make sure his Labor nominee Alex Acosta wasn’t related to CNN’s Jim Acosta
— T.J. Holmes (@tjholmes) February 16, 2017
Whether or not Acosta, upon confirmation, will serve in the interests of DACA students and immigrants is something to keep an eye out for. However, his background within immigrant communities and as an Assistant Attorney General that promoted civil rights laws, especially for Muslim Americans, makes this Labor Secretary pick a peculiar one for the Trump administration.
