Alejandro Mayorkas is an American lawyer and government official. Mayorkas is the United States Secretary of Homeland Security in the Biden administration. Previously, Secretary Mayorkas worked as an Obama administration appointee, first as Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and later as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ¹

As an Obama administration appointee, Secretary Mayorkas helped lead the implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program which shields select illegal immigrants from deportation. ² He was also found to have personally intervened in investor visa cases involving associates of prominent Democrats whose applications would have otherwise been denied. These cases involved Anthony Rodham, the brother of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D); and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). ³

Early Life and Education

Secretary Mayorkas was born on November 24, 1959 to Charles and Anita Mayorkas in Havana, Cuba. His parents are both Jewish, and his mother, Anita, was a Romanian Jew who escaped to Cuba during the Holocaust. When Secretary Mayorkas was around one year old, his family fled to America to escape the Communist regime in Cuba. The Mayorkas family initially lived in Miami, Florida, but later moved to Los Angeles, California. ⁴

Secretary Mayorkas graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981. He then attended and graduated from Loyola Marymount University’s Law School in 1985 with his doctorate of law.

Assistant United States Attorney

Secretary Mayorkas began his career working at the law firm of Edward Rosenfeld, where he had interned while at Berkeley. ⁵ A short time later, Mayorkas joined Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, a law firm headquartered in New York City. Mayorkas left the firm in 1989 to join the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles County in its jurisdiction. ⁶

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Secretary Mayorkas specialized in prosecuting major fraud. He coordinated the Southern California Boiler Room Task Force, which cracked down on so-called “boiler room” operations, or criminal investors that attempt to scam consumers into purchasing fraudulent goods and stocks. At the time, then-California Attorney General John Van de Kamp (D) called Southern California “the investment fraud capital of the world.” ⁷

Secretary Mayorkas’ largest case was the 1989 successful prosecution of Operation Polar Cap, which was then the largest money laundering case in the nation. Involving drug money laundered by Colombia’s Medellin cartel, Operation Polar Cap ended with charges against 127 people and two Latin American banks. ⁸ Secretary Mayorkas also played a role in prosecuting “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss, a celebrity who ran a large prostitution ring in Los Angeles. ⁹

From 1996 until late 1998, Secretary Mayorkas worked as Chief of the General Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in which he trained new assistant U.S. attorneys in prosecuting narcotics crimes, violent crimes, immigration crimes, and fraud. ¹⁰

United States Attorney

Secretary Mayorkas served as an assistant U.S. attorney for just under 10 years. In December 1998, he was recommended by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and appointed by then-President Bill Clinton as United States Attorney for the Central District of California. At the age of 39, Secretary Mayorkas became the youngest U.S. attorney in the nation. ¹¹ In this position, Secretary Mayorkas was also appointed Vice Chair of the U.S. Attorney General’s Advisory Subcommittee on Civil Rights and served as a member of the Subcommittee on Ethics in Government. ¹²

Secretary Mayorkas’ three-year tenure as a U.S. attorney was tainted by controversy. Secretary Mayorkas successfully petitioned President Clinton to commute the 15-year sentence of Carlos Vignali Jr., the son of a wealthy Democratic donor who was imprisoned for trafficking hundreds of pounds of cocaine. Secretary Mayorkas himself later admitted that he had made “a mistake” in pushing for the commutation. ¹³

Obama Administration

In 2001, Secretary Mayorkas joined O’Melveny & Myers as a litigation partner. He worked there until 2009, when he was appointed by then-President Barack Obama as Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). There, he led the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and was praised for doing so in just 60 days. ¹⁴ In addition, Mayorkas was in charge of the USCIS’s EB-5 visa program, in which foreign investors that had invested at least $500,000 into a U.S business or venture that creates jobs to apply for a green card. ¹⁵

In 2013, Secretary Mayorkas was appointed as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security and confirmed in the U.S. Senate along party lines. ¹⁶ As Deputy Secretary of DHS, Secretary Mayorkas oversaw the DHS response to the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, launched campaigns to combat human trafficking, and created a program for Haitian youth orphaned by the 2010 Haiti earthquake. ¹⁷ He also focused on bolstering American cyber security. In 2015, Secretary Mayorkas attempted to negotiate with the Chinese government to prevent intellectual property theft. ¹⁸

Intervening in USCIS’ EB-5 Visa Program

According to a March 2015 DHS report by the Office of Inspector General, Mayorkas, as then-director of the USCIS, had intervened in and expedited the EB-5 visa processes in at least three instances involving foreign investors connected to projects with ties to Democrat Party members. One instance within the IG report mentioned how Mayorkas “pressured staff” ¹⁹ to expedite and approve the review of an EB-5 investment into a Las Vegas hotel and casino project supported by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Another example mentioned in the report saw Mayorkas pushing for “expedited review” ²⁰ of EB-5 investment requests into GreenTech Automotive (GTA), an electric car company with ties to former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. ²¹ GTA had also received funding from an EB-5 visa investment group, Gulf Coast Funds Management Regional Center, run by Anthony Rodham, the brother of then-U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ^{22 23} In the case associated with Rodham and McAuliffe, then-Director Mayorkas approved Rodham’s associated investor, even after the initial application was denied and the appeal rejected. ²⁴ According to the IG’s report, Rodham had previously emailed Mayorkas regarding delays for approval of immigrant visas, after which Mayorkas then forwarded said messages to USCIS staff and noted the matter as, “a ‘high importance’ designation.” ^{25 26}

The report further noted that Mayorkas had, “communicated with stakeholders on substantive issues, outside of the normal adjudicatory process and intervened with the career USCIS staff in ways that benefited the stakeholders…In … three instances, but for Mr. Mayorkas’s intervention, the matter would have been decided differently.” ²⁷ The report concluded by stating, “the juxtaposition of Mr. Mayorkas’ communication with external stakeholders on specific matters outside the normal procedures, coupled with favorable action that deviated from the regulatory scheme designed to ensure fairness and evenhandedness in adjudicating benefits, created an appearance of favoritism and special access.” ²⁸

During a 2015 House Homeland Security Committee hearing, complaints from USCIS employees included in the IG’s report were discussed regarding Mayorkas’ direct input on certain EB-5 visa cases. Several employees found his decision to intervene, particularly in the initial decision on the Rodham and McAuliffe-connected GreenTech Automotive, to be, “highly unusual because past USCIS Directors typically had not scrutinized individual decisions; they found this level of scrutiny unsettling.” ²⁹ Mayorkas responded to the USCIS employee complaints by stating, “I do regret the perceptions that my activities created and I take responsibility for those perceptions…I did not let errors go unchecked, but instead helped ensure that those cases were decided correctly, nothing more and nothing less.” ³⁰

In further response to the IG’s report, Mayorkas added, “While I disagree with the Inspector General’s report, I will certainly learn from it and from this process…I could not and did not turn my back on my responsibility to address those grave problems. I made improving the program a priority and I did so in a hands-on manner, through cases, policies, and sweeping personnel and organizational changes.” ³¹

During the Homeland Security Committe Hearing, Inspector Genral John Roth concluded within the report that his office did not believe there to be, “criminal activity involved” ³² with how then-director Mayorkas conducted expedited EB-5 visa requests through the USCIS office. ³³ In addition, he stated that, “we have not seen any kind of action that we believe violates criminal law.” ³⁴

Biden Administration

In 2016, Secretary Mayorkas briefly joined the Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr law firm. He worked there until 2021, when he was appointed by President Joe Biden as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security.

Most Senate Republicans strongly opposed Secretary Mayorkas’ nomination, pointing towards his record of abusing power and practicing political favoritism. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called Secretary Mayorkas an “ethically-compromised partisan lawyer,” arguing that that he had done “his best to turn U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services into an unethical favor factory for Democratic Party royalty.” ³⁵

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5. Jervis, Rick. “Alejandro Mayorkas Fought for Refugees and Dreamers. Can He Undo Four Years of Trump Immigration Policies?” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, March 4, 2021. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/05/alejandro-mayorkas-prosecutor-latino-immigrant-biden-homeland-security/4374767001/.
6. Rosenzweig , David. “Feinstein Recommends Mayorkas for U.S. Attorney in L.A.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1998. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-oct-09-me-30731-story.html.
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12. “Alejandro Mayorkas.” Department of Homeland Security, September 21, 2018. https://www.dhs.gov/archive/alejandro-mayorkas.
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15. Mosk, Matthew and Brian Ross. “Top Homeland Official Alejandro Mayorkas Accused of Political Favoritism.” ABC News, March 24, 2015. https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-homeland-official-alejandro-mayorkas-accused-political-favoritism/story?id=29868429
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17. Jervis, Rick. “Alejandro Mayorkas Fought for Refugees and Dreamers. Can He Undo Four Years of Trump Immigration Policies?” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, March 4, 2021. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/05/alejandro-mayorkas-prosecutor-latino-immigrant-biden-homeland-security/4374767001/.
18. Marks, Joseph. “Analysis | The Cybersecurity 202: Biden’s DHS Pick Adds Cybersecurity Chops to the Incoming Administration.” The Washington Post. WP Company, November 24, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/24/cybersecurity-202-bidens-dhs-pick-adds-cybersecurity-chops-incoming-administration/.
19. Fordham, Evie. “Biden DHS pick Mayorkas intervened to help Democrat-connected foreign investors: IG.” Fox News, November 24, 2020. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-dhs-pick-mayorkas-intervened-democratic-connected-eb5-investors
20. Gerstein, Josh. “Report cites favoritism for McAuliffe and brother of Hillary Clinton.” Politico, March 25, 2015. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/report-cites-favoritism-for-terry-mcauliffe-and-brother-of-hillary-clinton-116370
21. Gerstein, Josh. “Report cites favoritism for McAuliffe and brother of Hillary Clinton.” Politico, March 25, 2015. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/report-cites-favoritism-for-terry-mcauliffe-and-brother-of-hillary-clinton-116370
22. Mosk, Matthew and Brian Ross. “Top Homeland Official Alejandro Mayorkas Accused of Political Favoritism.” ABC News, March 24, 2015. https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-homeland-official-alejandro-mayorkas-accused-political-favoritism/story?id=29868429
23. Gerstein, Josh. “Report cites favoritism for McAuliffe and brother of Hillary Clinton.” Politico, March 25, 2015. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/report-cites-favoritism-for-terry-mcauliffe-and-brother-of-hillary-clinton-116370
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26. Gerstein, Josh. “Report cites favoritism for McAuliffe and brother of Hillary Clinton.” Politico, March 25, 2015. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/report-cites-favoritism-for-terry-mcauliffe-and-brother-of-hillary-clinton-116370
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29. Mosk, Matthew and Brian Ross. “Top Homeland Official Alejandro Mayorkas Accused of Political Favoritism.” ABC News, March 24, 2015. https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-homeland-official-alejandro-mayorkas-accused-political-favoritism/story?id=29868429
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32. Parker, Ashley. “Homeland Security Official Didn’t Break Law on Visas, Inspector Says.” New York Times, March 26, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/us/homeland-security-official-didnt-break-law-on-visas-inspector-says.html
33. Parker, Ashley. “Homeland Security Official Didn’t Break Law on Visas, Inspector Says.” New York Times, March 26, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/us/homeland-security-official-didnt-break-law-on-visas-inspector-says.html
34. Parker, Ashley. “Homeland Security Official Didn’t Break Law on Visas, Inspector Says.” New York Times, March 26, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/us/homeland-security-official-didnt-break-law-on-visas-inspector-says.html
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