Edward H. Skerrett began his immigration career in 1964 as a summer immigration inspector at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. After working summers in New York and Montreal, Mr. Skerrett became a full-time immigration inspector in August of 1973 at Champlain, New York, on the U.S.-Canada border. In 1975, he moved to Philadelphia where he worked for twelve years, first as an immigration inspector, then as an immigration examiner, and finally as Assistant District Director for Examinations. In the latter position, he oversaw all immigration adjudications activities as well as airport and seaport inspections.

In 1987, Mr. Skerrett came to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Headquarters in Washington as a senior examiner in the Office of Adjudications. Over the next five years, he was involved in a variety of projects, including representing INS at immigration negotiations of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In 1990, he was made a team leader for implementation of the Immigration Act of 1990. His team wrote the regulations for employment-based immigrants.

Mr. Skerrett was promoted in 1992 to Chief, Immigrant Branch, within the Office of Adjudications. In 1995, Mr. Skerrett was detailed by INS to the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform (Jordan Commission) where he served as a senior policy analyst. A year later, he returned to INS Headquarters as Chief of the Administrative Appeals Unit within the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO). For a little less than year while at AAO, he served as Acting Director.

From 1999 until 2003, Mr. Skerrett was Immigration Attache/INS Officer in Charge at the U.S. Embassy in London, UK. In this capacity, he was in charge of U.S. immigration operations within the UK and the Republic of Ireland, including adjudicative services, immigration enforcement, and inspections.

Mr. Skerrett came back to the United States and to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of DHS for his final year and a half before retirement at the end of 2004. From June of 2003 until May of 2004, he was a branch chief in the Administrative Appeals Office, and from May 2004 until December of 2004, he was Director of International Operations within the Office of Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations.

Mr. Skerrett holds a B.A. in English from Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, and an M.A. from Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. He was an officer in the U.S. Army from 1966 to 1968, serving one year in Vietnam, and taught English Literature at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, from 1968 to 1973. He and his wife, Louise, have three children and two grandchildren. In retirement, Mr. Skerrett is teaching English on a part-time basis at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland.

Additional Resources: View video of Mr. Skerrett accepting his Distinguished Public Service Award at the AILF event March 18, 2005, in Washington, DC.