The US diplomat responsible for refugee issues is intending to quit his post in the next few days, becoming the third senior political official in the Trump administration to have been reassigned or resigned from such duties in the last few weeks. Simon Henshaw, the acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration in the State Department, has emailed colleagues to reveal that he will have left the job by the end of the week, according to Reuters.
On Saturday, Henshaw said that his decision to leave was not connected to the Trump administration immigration policies, which have resulted in a curtailment in the admission of refugees to the US. A spokeswoman for the State Department has also described the move as routine.
Henshaw said that he has served as a career foreign service officer for 33 years, and his time at the migration bureau has been his longest-serving assignment and that he has previously been accustomed to moving on from positions every two-to-three years. He had been in the post of principal deputy assistant secretary since July 2013 before becoming acting assistant secretary from the start of the Trump administration.
From 22 January, Carol O’Connell, currently the African Affairs deputy assistant secretary of state, will take over the running of the bureau. Recently, the State Department’s refugee admissions office head, Lawrence Bartlett, was reassigned and US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ refugee divisions chief, Barbara Stack announced her retirement.