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New Values-Based Recruiting for State Department
Andrew Crapuchettes is a man with a mission. He wants to bring patriotic values to government employment recruiting, and, he wants to personally help implement Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s mandate to reform the Department of State to better represent those values abroad long past the end of the Trump/Vance/Rubio administrations. Can he do it?
Crapuchettes earlier this spring received an almost one million dollar contract to act as a recruiter for the Department of State for new Foreign Service Officers (FSOs). He intends to implement this contract for finding America’s next generation of diplomats via his existing employment search websites, RedBalloon and Military Hire. When he talks about values-based recruiting, Crapuchettes pulls no punches about what his intention for State is, saying a lot of State’s “recruiting was focused on DEI. It was focused on trying to get in the guy with a PhD in black dance, rather than people who can actually do a good job.” He promises future recruits that “all of a sudden you’re in a position where you can have a huge influence for the rest of your life on the U.S. government.” He even sat for an interview with podcast CrossPolitic titled “Could 1,000 Employees Change the State Department Forever?”
The promised changes are in line with broader directives from President Trump and Secretary Rubio. In March 2025 Trump signed a memorandum directing the Secretary of State to remove “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility” (DEIA) as a Core Precept that under Biden controlled Foreign Service promotions. Supervisors under Biden were required to list specific DEIA accomplishments for each diplomat on his yearly job evaluation. The Trump memo further directed State not base Foreign Service recruitment and hiring on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, nor embed discriminatory equity ideology within any element of the Foreign Service. Rubio was quick to act, firing some 1,300 State Department employees, including 246 Foreign Service Officers, and recalling many then-ambassadors seen as opposed to Trump’s foreign policy. Rubio wrote about the restructuring that “motivated and creative State Department employees see their ideas watered down by turf battles until they give up… While the talented and loyal are driven into indifference. Radical ideologues and bureaucratic infighters have learned to play on this exhaustion to push through their own agendas that are often at odds with those of the president and undermine the interests of the United States.”
Some of the first concrete steps to dismantle DEIA and chip away at State’s culture Rubio took after the initial firings already concerned recruitment; new officers offer a faster way to reshape institutional culture than attempting to change the outlook of an entrenched workforce. Rubio suspended the Charles Rangel and Thomas Pickering Fellowships. Both existed to provide an alternative pathway into the Foreign Service with benefits not available through the standard hiring process, with a focus on increasing representation of underrepresented groups. The programs were administered through Howard University, a historically black institution, and the recruited Fellows were estimated to be 80 percent black, multi-racial or Hispanic. Rubio also did away with diplomats in residence (DIR), a program designed to reach populations with lower percentages in the Foreign Service than their share of the general population. Many DIRs were based at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Today, almost everyone who enters State as an FSO must now pass the same rigorous vetting, leveling the playing racial field.
A look at Crapuchettes’ current job employment websites at RedBalloon and Military Hire offers some clues to how State’s FSO recruitment may work in the near future. The sites advise all employers must pledge to honor free speech and medical privacy, something that may challenge State with its complex restrictions on FSOs appearing on TV and even in social media. RedBalloon itself states it seeks “motivated job seekers who value freedom, hard work, and merit-based recognition, and employers that respect their constitutional rights and provide a positive workplace where merit and achievement are honored.” MilitaryHire is much the same, but leans more heavily toward matching former military members with technical skills with businesses working alongside government. Crapuchettes is unabashedly Christian (this is of course what the MSM seized upon).
Browsing Crapuchettes’ employment sites shows they currently recruit for ICE and the Border Patrol. Some advertisements seek people who have or who will qualify for security clearances to work at Northern Virginia locations such as McLean, which may or may not be affiliated with the Intelligence Community or its network of contractors. One such ad is looking for people with proven lockpicking skills. Most other employers in the Washington, DC area appear to be well-known conservative or right-of-center groups and NGOs.
It is clear, in line with Rubio’s other changes, the change in recruiting venue is part of an all-out effort to radically change the culture of the State Department. Its last radical change, actually more of a lateral move, was during the Obama and Biden eras, especially under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Democrats expanded the traditional conception of diplomacy to include advocacy on LGBT rights, women’s rights, labor issues, and other social justice policy priorities. Critics argued recruitment favored applicants from elite universities and applicants who shared prevailing progressive assumptions within the foreign policy establishment. It is consistent with this former pseudo-ideological strategy that the new recruitment emphasis fits with the Trump administration’s own approach to foreign affairs.
Trump in his first term talked a good game about State Department reform, but he chose weak Secretaries of State who never understood they needed to affect change at all levels to alter State’s broader culture. The rank and file in an almost feral way understood this and stymied initiatives, slow-walked paper, and resisted initiatives until the changemakers ran out of time and likely interest. State successfully waited out its opponents in the first Trump administration because it did not believe it represents the Executive or even an America which it did not support politically. State instead had its own version of what the world really needs.
Things may be different now, as a growing cohort of conservative thinkers that will outlast Trump has come out of the closet inside State for the first time. Rubio’s changes reach into the hereto untouched recruitment, training, and promotion processes, the systems that shape institutional culture over the long run. Whether these reforms endure past the next Republican president is the central question. Personnel policies can be quickly reversed by future administrations. Rubio appears to be betting that changing who enters the Foreign Service will prove more durable than changing those already inside it.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
It’s 2-0 for Trump on Immigration
With one quasi-win at the Supreme Court and one still evolving at a lower immigration court, it is safe to call it a soft 2-0 for Trump on immigration matters. The courts did not curtail significantly Trump’s power as desired by the Left, but also did not allow the creation of a Constitutional black hole in El Salvador that would have greatly increased his power. There are still big questions to be addressed as appeals play out.
An immigration judge recently ruled the Trump administration can deport Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a decision that comes a month after his arrest marked the start of the federal government’s crackdown on foreign students. The U.S. revoked Khalil’s green card under a little-used part of immigration law; the United States can take away green cards from legal permanent residents, as well as student visas, simply if “the Secretary of State determines that the applicant’s activities abroad are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States.”
No due process is directly provided by the law per se, though in the instant case Khalil’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus motion to stay his deportation, hence the recent trial before an immigration judge in Louisiana. Rubio accused Khalil of participating in protests he described as anti-semitic and supportive of Hamas. Foreigners who come to the United States and do such things, he stated, will have their visas or green cards revoked and be kicked out. “This is not about free speech,” Rubio said. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.” Rubio has teed up some 300 foreign students to have their visas revoked.
Though Khalil has at least two appeals pending (one in front of the Board of Immigration Appeals and one in New Jersey, where he was first detained) the lower immigration court just sent a powerful signal to the Trump administration if you consider Khalil’s case a kind of “proof of concept” for the use of the Secretary of State’s unilateral power to revoke green cards and visas. The court did not challenge this, and in fact affirmed the Trump administration’s argument Khalil’s beliefs threaten national security and justify his deportation, in line with precedent. The court also ignored any larger First Amendment issues in its decision. The win though could be weakened overall by helping establish a right to habeas corpus for future cases (see Garcia, below.) You can expect the government to move quickly now to deport the remaining students whose visas have already been revoked.
The Supreme Court ruled on a companion case, creating another (though more arguable) “win” for Trump. The Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return to the United States of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien deported to El Salvador due to an “administrative error” and who remains locked up there. The Court wrote “The order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, entered the U.S. illegally 15 years ago and claimed asylum. A federal judge in 2019 granted him protection from being deported because of concerns for his safety if he were to return to El Salvador. Gracia had been accused of being a member of MS-13, a charge later dropped. He was granted some sort of status in the U.S. and married an American citizen. Then, just recently, Garcia was deported on a flight with men alleged by the Trump administration to be members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Though Garcia seems to ultimately albeit slowly be on his way back to the United States, the Court’s decision may still be seen as a win for Trump. As in the Khalil case, the Court left untouched the larger question of whether the Trump administration’s use of the two centuries old Alien Enemies Act was legal. That opens the door to future uses of the Act to speedily deport illegal aliens. The “loss” part of the decision is that the Court did allow that Garcia was entitled to some due process. The Act on its face provides for none, and that’s what makes it so attractive to the Trump administration with its plans for large-scale deportations. Unlike the 47,000 illegals now in custody, aliens rounded up under the Act did not appear due a day in court before an immigration judge to plead their case. The Act appeared to allow ICE to move arrestees straight from their apprehension to a flight out of the United States.
Not so, said the Supreme Court, in granting Garcia the right to challenge his detention via habeas corpus filed in the United States, even though he is actually in the custody of the sovereign nation of El Salvador (the habeas right generally supported by post-9/11 rulings for prisoners stuck in Saudi prisons by U.S. request.) That’s the bad news for those supporting Trump. The good news is the habeas petition must be filed where the alien is locked up in America (primarily Trump-friendly Louisiana and Texas), which seems to preclude broad injunctions from more liberal East Coast courts and ultimately narrow the scope of judicial review (cases will also need to be brought on an individual basis rather than as a class-action lawsuit.) And since even ICE admits Garcia was deported in error, it is good that he may eventually be released from El Salvador. The Trump administration does seem to be slow-walking that process, though.
There’s another “win” for Trump in the Court decision, about Garcia’s return to the U.S., a change in one word from the lower court decison. The lower court ordered Trump to “effectuate” Garcia’s return. The Supreme Court directed the Trump administration instead to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release. The wording change shows the Court still wishes to show deference to the administration on matters of foreign affairs, choosing a lower standard of action, and also removing the time limits to action the lower court tried to impose. “Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review,” the government’s lawyers argued. Weakened thusly, the case was returned to the lower court.
The Department of Homeland Security emphasized that latter portion of the order in its response. “SCOTUS agreed with us that the District Court improperly interfered with the President’s foreign affairs power. The District Court was overbearing and, as SCOTUS said, should clarify its directive with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” The justices “made clear that a district court judge cannot exercise Article II foreign affairs powers,” the White House’s Stephen Miller wrote.
This struggle between the Trump administration and the courts, with each side claiming authority over the immigration laws, is far from over. The recent decisions duck tough questions about First Amendment rights in the Khalil case and the validity of the Alien Enemies Act in the Garcia and other cases. Some of the ancillary issues, particularly the rights to an American court-based due process for persons held overseas, echo the legal struggles of the post-9/11 era, when the Bush administration unsuccessfully argued enemy combatants held in Gitmo and elsewhere abroad had no access to American courts. That case law may yet prove controlling in what is happening with deportations now from the United States to foreign prisons. It is clear enough the Supreme Court isn’t ready to rubber stamp either the lower courts’ or the administration’s positions.
“Beyond the specifics of implementation,” writes Politico, “the administration’s maneuvering appears to represent a concerted effort to evade longstanding American law by intentionally sending people to a legal black hole with no process, no rights and no recourse.” The government argued unsuccessfully at the time of 9/11 American courts lacked jurisdiction to review detentions at Guantanamo, and that the president was free to ignore both national and international law governing the treatment of detainees. We’ll see if that stands on immigration where it fell in the War on Terror.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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