The Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans shall be headed by an Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans, who shall serve as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary. The Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
To ensure consistency with the policy priorities of the Department, the head of each component of the Department shall coordinate with the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans in establishing or modifying policies or strategic planning guidance with respect to each such component.
There shall be transferred to the Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans the maintenance of all immigration statistical information of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which shall include information and statistics of the type contained in the publication entitled “Yearbook of Immigration Statistics” prepared by the Office of Immigration Statistics, including region-by-region statistics on the aggregate number of applications and petitions filed by an alien (or filed on behalf of an alien) and denied, and the reasons for such denials, disaggregated by category of denial and application or petition type.
There is established within the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans an Assistant Secretary, who shall assist the Secretary in carrying out the duties under paragraph (2) and the responsibilities under paragraph (3). Notwithstanding section 113(a)(1) of this title, the Assistant Secretary established under this paragraph shall be appointed by the President without the advice and consent of the Senate.
At the direction of the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary established under paragraph (1) shall be responsible for policy formulation regarding matters relating to economic security and trade, as such matters relate to the mission and the operations of the Department.
The term “critical economic security domain” means any infrastructure, industry, technology, or intellectual property (or combination thereof) that is essential for the economic security of the United States.
The term “economic security” has the meaning given such term in section 474(c)(2) of this title.
Nothing in this section overrides or otherwise affects the requirements specified in section 468 of this title.