The Senate Committee on the Judiciary must ensure that Gadyaces Serralta, nominee to serve as director of the United States Marshals Service (USMS), will prioritize the security and enforcement needs of the federal judiciary over the political wishes of the Trump administration, according to testimony submitted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The “primary role and mission” of the USMS is to “provide for the security” and “enforce all orders of” the United States District Courts, Courts of Appeals and other federal courts except the Supreme Court. To fulfill its security mandate, the agency’s work includes providing protective details for and assessing threats against judges and keeping jurors, witnesses and the public safe in courthouses. And the USMS has gone to great lengths to enforce court orders, including, notably, providing physical protection to students integrating previously-segregated public schools and universities during the 1960s.

Today, however, the USMS is at an inflection point for two primary reasons. First, judges are facing a rapidly growing number of physical threats, but the USMS is experiencing spending cuts and staff losses, impeding the agency’s ability to protect jurists. Second, the Trump administration has increasingly used the USMS to achieve its own policy goals, particularly in immigration enforcement, thereby depriving the already-stretched agency of much-needed resources. That politicization of the USMS also raises the question of what the agency would do if the Trump administration or Department of Justice directed it not to enforce a legally valid court order because they disagreed with the court’s conclusion.

USMS’s primary functions are crucial to preserving an independent judiciary and the rule of law, which are hallmarks of a democracy. Historically, the U.S. marshals have faithfully performed those primary functions and served the needs of the judiciary. As judges face growing threats to their physical safety and the executive branch increasingly uses the USMS to fulfill its policy goals, the USMS’s fidelity to the judiciary is more important than ever. Before confirming Serralta to serve as director of the USMS, this Committee must ensure that under his leadership, the USMS will consistently prioritize the safety and enforcement needs of the federal courts. The wellbeing of our democracy depends on it.

Read the testimony here.

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