Washington, D.C. (December 1, 2020) - A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies examines the man tapped to become U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, Cuba-born Alejandro "Ali" Mayorkas. As secretary, Mayorkas would run one of the country's largest bureaucracies, with some 240,000 employees and would have far-reaching impact on all forms of legal and illegal immigration.
Mayorkas' public service legacy features serial ethical imbroglios, a pointed de-emphasis on immigration fraud and law enforcement, and strong-arm management tactics to spike acceptances of immigration and asylum applications in disregard of eligibility.
Todd Bensman, the Center's senior national security fellow, said, "Mayorkas has a long track record in public service, with serious ethical blemishes along the way. While the U.S. Senate may well approve a nomination on the basis of the good in his track record, lawmakers also are obliged to consider serious ethical lapses and heavy-handed management tactics that at times seemed to prize political favoritism over good governance."
Bensman continued, "The DHS secretary appointment is one of the most important and far-reaching of the presidential cabinet posts when it comes to enforcing immigration law and setting immigration-related policy priorities. That being the case, any portrayal of Alejandro Mayorkas does not serve the public interest if it is only partial, with the redactions and omissions allowed so far."
Mayorkas served President Barack Obama as head of USCIS from 2009-2013, and as deputy secretary for DHS from 2013-2016, before retiring to a blue-chip law firm in Washington, D.C. In October 2010, about a year after Mayorkas's appointment to head USCIS, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) penned a complaint to then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, which raises questions about Mayorkas's fealty to immigration and asylum law enforcement. The Grassley letter, citing anonymous employee allegations, accused the top USCIS official of laying heavy-handed pressure on career employees to squeeze out higher volumes of immigration application approvals for the agency's "customers", while undermining fraud and ineligibility detection efforts.
Following an investigation, Grassley later wrote, "Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that Director Mayorkas is fostering an environment that pressures employees to approve as many applications as possible and condones retaliation against those who dissent," he wrote.
Later a 2015 DHS Inspector General report found Mayorkas inappropriately helped companies associated with powerful Democratic Party figures reverse employment visa denials for wealthy foreign nationals. In three specific cases Mayorkas "exerted improper influence in the normal processing and adjudication" of the visas, "inserted himself in unprecedented ways" in the adjudication process, and "intervened with the career USCIS staff in ways that clearly benefited the stakeholders.
Contrary to any effort to pitch him today as an asylum fraud crusader, Mayorkas did little or nothing either to free the FDNS investigators, add to their ranks, or generate more fraud case referrals. A damning December 2015 GAO report found that FDNS asylum fraud prosecutions rarely, if ever, occurred during the Mayorkas years. | |
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