DHS chief’s task: Undoing Trump immigration policies
Mayorkas, a son of refugees, previously was deputy secretary
After a series of coordinated terrorist attacks in crowded Paris cafes and restaurants in November 2015 left 130 people dead, some members of Congress threatened to shut down the U.S. refugee program.
Alejandro “Ali” Mayorkas, then deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and other staffers called members of Congress, pointing out the program’s value and security features, explaining that most of the Paris attackers were not refugees. It was a round-the-clock effort for three days straight.
It worked. The push to remove the program fizzled.
“There are refugees who live in the United States right now because Ali Mayorkas helped save the program,” said Alexandra Veitch, who worked at the White House’s Office of Legislative Affairs and collaborated with Mayorkas.
The effort illustrates the many traits former colleagues and staffers say Mayorkas possesses: tough, hardworking, persuasive, personally invested in issues and owning an inherent empathy for the plight of refugees.
Mayorkas, 61, is the first Latino and immigrant to head the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a sprawling department of 240,000 employees ranging from Border Patrol agents to cybersecurity analysts. Mayorkas, who emigrated from Cuba with his parents as an infant, took over a department roiled by constant leadership turnover under the Trump administration and gripped by low morale. He’s the first Senate-confirmed head of DHS since April 2019, when Kirstjen Nielsen resigned from the post.
He’s tasked with untangling the path to this country for thousands of refugees and would-be immigrants after four years of tough-on-immigration policies that saw children separated from their families and kept in cells, asylum seekers quickly deported and migrants from Muslim-majority nations banned. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden said he would find a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million
undocumented immigrants, an unprecedented task now on Mayorkas’ to-do list.
In a statement, Mayorkas said his background and experience make him uniquely qualified for his new role. He declined to be interviewed.
“We are a nation of immigrants, built on their energy, aspirations and ideas. It is long past time we fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “We will enforce our laws in a way that is humane, respects due process, and strengthens our nation and its economy.”
Several Senate Republicans opposed Mayorkas’ confirmation. Critics point to a DHS inspector general report in 2015 on allegations that Mayorkas was “exerting improper influence” in helping get visas approved for wealthy foreign investors. The report concluded that Mayorkas’ actions were legal and “legitimately within his purview” as deputy secretary.
“He does not deserve confirmation to lead Homeland Security,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said.
Biden signed a raft of immigration-related executive orders in his first two weeks in office, reversing many of President Donald Trump’s policies, including ending construction of Trump’s signature wall on the border with Mexico and ordering a review of the Migrant Protection Protocols, or “Remain in Mexico” policy, that forced migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while waiting to plead their case before a judge. The White House announced the formation of a task force to reunite the hundreds of families separated at the border.
Those who know him say Mayorkas’ personal story and 30-plus-year career in law and
government readied him for this moment.
“He’s a prosecutor, a law enforcement guy, but also someone who understands what sound immigration policy looks like,” said Ali Noorani, chief executive of the National Immigration Forum. “He represents the complexity of DHS in one human being.”
Mayorkas was born in Havana to a Jewish Cuban father and a Jewish mother whose family fled Nazi persecution in Romania. After Fidel Castro seized control of the island in 1959, the family fled, settling in Beverly Hills, California.
“My father lost his livelihood and his business, was not able to be present at the burial of his mother, as we left Cuba after the Communist takeover of the country,” he said in a statement. “The United States provided my family and me a place of refuge. We were raised cherishing democracy.”
After a few years in private practice, Mayorkas was hired as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, a sprawling, seven-county area that includes Los Angeles and 19 million people.
His talent and work ethic got noticed, and in 1999, President Bill Clinton appointed him to U.S. attorney for the Central District, becoming the youngest U.S. attorney at the time, overseeing cases ranging from financial fraud to public corruption and international money laundering rings.
After leaving the Central District and a few years in the private sector, Mayorkas returned to public service as head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He was instrumental in implementing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that offers deportation protections and work permits for young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, brought to the USA as children.
“He ensured that it was more than an announcement, more than a hope and a vision,” said Lorella Praeli, who was director of policy and advocacy for United We Dream, an immigrant advocacy group. “He wanted to see it through.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees complained that Mayorkas ordered staff to fast-track applications for EB-5 visas to wealthy investors connected to prominent Democrats, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, leading to the DHS inspector general report in 2015. Mayorkas argued that he was trying to streamline a badly broken visa system he had inherited and had also intervened on behalf of prominent Republicans.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who chaired the Homeland Security Committee, helped Mayorkas win his confirmation to be deputy secretary of DHS over the objections of several Republicans and traveled with Mayorkas to Central American countries, such as Guatemala, to oversee the rollout of the Alliance for Prosperity, a plan to assist struggling countries and stem the flow of migration from the region to the USA.
Carper said he was impressed by the deputy secretary’s grasp of the issues and his restless work ethic.
“I don’t know when he sleeps,” Carper said. “He is one hard worker.”
Mayorkas led the DHS response to Ebola and Zika outbreaks, stood up campaigns to combat human trafficking and developed an emergency relief program for orphaned youth in the wake of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.
Near the end of his term as DHS deputy secretary, Mayorkas took a work trip to Cuba with other officials as part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to restore diplomacy between the two Cold War foes.
In Havana, Mayorkas visited his family’s tomb at a Jewish cemetery, met with Cuban officials and soaked in the sights and sounds of his birth country. One night after dinner, Gil Kerlikowske, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection who was traveling with Mayorkas, received a phone call in his hotel room. It was Mayorkas: Get ready, he told him, they were going for a ride.
The two were driven to the Malecon, Havana’s famed seaside promenade. Trailed by Secret Service agents, they strolled along the breezy walkway and chatted with locals.
Mayorkas talked with all of them, trying to get a feel for his birth island and the issues that mattered most to locals, Kerlikowske said.
“It was a magical evening,” he said. “People just felt comfortable around him. They just wanted to talk to him.”