This may be a bit of a stretch, but Egypt's de facto ruler and Homeland Security's leader do have some things in common.
They are both, as of May 29, un-elected public officials in their 50s, both formerly high-ranking in their nation's military establishments, and relatively new to their current positions of power. That much is pretty clear.
Further, both are in the odd position of offering what appear to be benefits, and finding those benefits rejected (or at least not accepted) by those who might be expected to welcome them.
In the case of el-Sisi the benefit being offered is the chance to vote for president — something very rare in Egypt's long history. According to the Associated Press, so few people took advantage of the opportunity to vote, during a two-day election (which el-Sisi is expected to win handsomely), that the regime has kept the polls open for an unprecedented third day.
The general suspicion is that Egyptian voters do not regard it as a real election, and see no benefit in participating.
Meanwhile, Secretary Johnson's department is offering some benefits that are getting pretty cold shoulders. I can think of at least four that fall into this category.
The most recent non-acceptance to surface is the reaction of the state of Washington to an offer of $143 million in EB-5 funds, as part of a loan to replace a bridge leading into Seattle. The state government does not want the money and has been sued by EB-5 middlemen for refusing to take the money as part of a $4.3 billion reconstruction effort according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
Why does the state not want the money? It is because it wanted to "avoid negative media coverage" according to the article.
I am not a lawyer, but can you successfully sue someone for not accepting your loan?
Meanwhile, a major corporation on the other side of our northern border, TransCanada, has similarly rejected EB-5 funding for the proposed Keystone oil pipeline, as I reported in a previous blog.
These are two truly major, financially solid projects in which, apparently, the managers can easily secure investors without going through complex extra channels (inherent in the EB-5 program) and without facing needless media attention. These negative decisions are black eyes for the EB-5 program, and support my image of most EB-5 projects as being middling or marginal in nature. The big, solid ones stay away from these moneys.
If DHS can't give away more than $100 million in loans, how about legal status in the United States? DHS is clearly out of its depth when it tries to handle investments, but immigration benefits are its specialty — the reaction of the target audience must be different in this field.
But it is not, at least not with one specific population. I am referring to the illegal aliens from Haiti who can extend their temporary legal situation by signing up for Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This rolling amnesty works in 18-month spurts and carries with it both the nuisance of filing papers with USCIS and paying fees, as well as the very real benefit of being able to work legally in the United States. Twice in the recent past USCIS has (like Egypt's election authorities) formally extended the sign-up period for these benefits because of a disappointing turnout, as reported in another blog.
In this case, I sense no stigma being attached to TPS status, but I do sense that interior enforcement of the immigration law is so lax that many Haitians have decided to risk the ire of ICE rather than to file for TPS one more time. So here are two more examples of a DHS benefit going to waste.
However, and while this may be a good example of faint praise, I would rather have a Jeh Johnson than an Abdel Fattah el-Sisi holding office in my nation's capital.