Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, born on November 24, 1959, is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2021 as the seventh United States Secretary of Homeland Security. During the Obama administration, he also served in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), first as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (2009–2013), and as deputy secretary of DHS (2013–2016).
Profile Summary
| Full Name: | Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas |
| Date of Birth: | November 24, 1959 |
| Place of Birth: | Havana, Cuba |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Lawyer and Politician |
| Net Worth: | $100 millions |
| Wife: | Tanya |
Early Life and Education
Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas was born in Havana, Cuba, on November 24, 1959. When he was one year old, his parents fled with him and his sister to the United States in 1960 as refugees, following the Cuban Revolution. He lived in Miami, Florida, before his family moved to Los Angeles, California, where he was raised for the remainder of his youth. Mayorkas grew up in Beverly Hills and attended Beverly Hills High School.
His father, Charles R. “Nicky” Mayorkas, was born in Cuba. He was a Cuban Jew of Sephardi (from the former Ottoman Empire, present-day Turkey and Greece) and Ashkenazi (from Poland) background. He owned and operated a steel wool factory on the outskirts of Havana. Nicky Mayorkas studied economics at Dartmouth College.
His mother, Anita (Gabor), was a Romanian Jew whose family escaped the Holocaust and fled to Cuba in the 1940s before leaving for the United States after the Cuban Revolution.
Mayorkas earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1981. He received his Juris Doctor in 1985 from Loyola Law School, where he was an editor of the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review.
Career
After law school, Mayorkas worked as an Assistant United States Attorney and was appointed the United States attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles during the administration of President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, where he oversaw the prosecution of high-profile criminal cases.
Mayorkas was a member of the presidential transition team for Barack Obama before he assumed office in January 2009, where he led the team responsible for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.
Mayorkas was appointed by President Obama as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). On May 20, 2009, the nomination was received by the Senate; on August 7, 2009, the nomination was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote.
As USCIS director, Mayorkas led United States citizenship through management efficiencies and fiscal responsibility, and safeguarded the integrity of the immigration system. He implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process in sixty days.
He led U.S. government efforts to rescue orphaned children following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and led the advancement of a crime victims unit that, for the first time, made it possible for the agency to issue the statutory maximum number of visas to victims of crime.
In 2016, Mayorkas became a partner at the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, in their Washington, D.C., office. On November 23, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden announced he would nominate Mayorkas as secretary of homeland security in his Cabinet.
Mayorkas’s nomination received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police and former secretaries Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff (who served under George W. Bush), Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson (under whom Mayorkas served), who said Biden “could not have found a more qualified person”.
On February 2, 2021, Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate on a 56–43 vote, with significant Senate Republican opposition. He was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on February 2, 2021. Mayorkas is the first refugee and first person born in Latin America to lead the department.
Early on in his tenure, arrests surged at the Mexico-United States border. In June 2021, the monthly number of intercepted migrants reached a decade high of 188,800.
On October 19, 2021, Mayorkas tested positive for COVID-19 during a test performed as part of pre-travel protocol. He experienced mild symptoms, forcing him to cancel a trip to Bogotá, Colombia, and to reschedule a Senate hearing.
Testifying to the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations on April 27, 2022, Mayorkas confirmed that the Biden administration will implement a “Disinformation Working Group” in the DHS with the intention to “develop guidelines, standards, [and] guardrails” to shape the department’s longstanding effort to counter disinformation.
Three weeks later, after critics called the initiative “a violation of free speech” and its executive director Nina Jankowicz had resigned, the Disinformation Working Group was “paused”.
In September 2021, a photo circulated of Border Patrol agents using their “long rein” to control horses; however, the photo appeared to show them “whipping” Haitian migrants. Upon its release, the image generated outrage. Initially, Mayorkas defended the actions of agents, but later, at a White House press conference, condemned their actions and pledged to investigate them.
In October 2022, The Heritage Foundation released emails that showed that, hours before the press conference, Mayorkas received emails that disproved the whipping claim, including from the photographer himself. Republicans condemned Mayorkas upon the emails’ release.
Senator Ted Cruz, Representatives Andy Biggs, Michael Cloud and Vicky Hartzler had, by October 2022, raised the prospect of impeaching Mayorkas. Chief of the United States Border Patrol under President Obama and acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President Trump Mark A. Morgan also condemned Mayorkas’s actions.
On October 31, 2023, Mayorkas testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, saying that more than 600,000 people illegally made their way into the United States without being apprehended by border agents during the 2023 fiscal year.
On November 9, 2023, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to impeach Mayorkas, citing a dereliction of duty and saying he “failed to maintain operational control of the [Southern] border”. The motion to impeach failed to pass on November 13, with the House voting 209–201 to defer the resolution to the House Homeland Security Committee. Eight Republicans joined all Democrats in blocking the measure.
On January 28, 2024, House Republicans introduced two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, alleging “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and breach of the public trust. Constitutional experts and Democrats asserted Republicans were using impeachment to address immigration policy disputes rather than for high crimes and misdemeanors, of which there was no evidence.
Legal scholar and law professor Jonathan Turley commented that the impeachment lacked a “cognizable basis” and that the inquiry had failed to show “conduct by the secretary that could be viewed as criminal or impeachable.” In a Washington Post opinion piece, Norm Eisen and Joshua Matz argued that an impeachment of Mayorkas on grounds of “maladministration” would violate the Constitution.
Former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, a Republican, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that “Republicans in the House should drop this impeachment charade and work with Mr. Mayorkas to deliver for the American people.”
On the eve of a committee vote on the impeachment articles, the conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board also questioned the reasoning for impeachment, writing “a policy dispute doesn’t qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor.”
On January 31, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee approved the articles along party lines for referral to the full House.
Alejandro Mayorkas Net worth
Alejandro Mayorkas has an estimated net worth of $100 millions. Alejandro Mayorkas is an American lawyer and politician serving since 2021 as the seventh United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
Personal Life
Alejandro Mayorkas and his wife Tanya have two daughters. He is a runner and plays tennis and squash.
