OSC report due for immigration official protected by MSPB stay
Maria Aran is the chief of staff for the Miami district of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a part of the Department of Homeland Security. When she discovered that a sub-office had mishandled hundreds of sensitive documents, she made a report for the agency's security office. When she sent that report, she inadvertently also sent it to 300 agency officials around the country. (Anyone else ever get surprised that an email was sent by "reply-all"?) Soon thereafter, Aran's bosses wanted to involuntarily transfer her to another agency. Aran complained to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) which requested an emergency stay of the transfer. The Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) granted that stay for 45 days. Andrew Becker of the Center for Investigative Reporting writes in today's Washington Post (p. B-3) that OSC is nearing the end of its 45-day investigative period. MSPB stays to protect whistleblowers were unheard of during the prior administration. While we appreciate this stay, we also long for President Obama to appoint a permanent Special Counsel who will have the support and staffing to seek more protections for whistleblowers.
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Rumor has it that OSC mandated a positive solution for Maria Aran and Rosemary Melville, Alejandro Mayorkas and a few other USCIS officials may be disciplined for retaliatory attacks on Aran. Good for Maria! Nice to see someone who plays by the rules and reports the misconduct of unethical government officials get protected.