Alejandro Mayorkas

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0:33Alejandro Mayorkas is the Secretary of Homeland Security, a department created after 9-11. Alejandro Mayorkas oversees, through his department, border security, a top issue for certain in the next presidential election. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with Alejandro Mayorkas, an immigrant from Cuba, to talk about issues facing his department, including the challenges from TikTok. Let me talk about the elephant in the room because you were the second secretary in the history of our country to be impeached. What was it like living through that impeachment process? And is it finally over now?

1:09To the best of my knowledge, it's over. So, you know, quite frankly, I have said publicly a number of times that I did not allow it to distract me. That was actually sincere. I focused intensely on my work throughout. In a week where it was an issue of greater prominence in the life of the department, I might have spent 20 minutes on it. I really just focused on my work. It had its impact on loved ones. So it's behind us now. Though as Will Rogers once said, and paraphrasing him, the country is never safe as long as the House is in session, right? So you never know. It may never come back, right?

1:56One would hope not. Okay. So let's talk about the border. It appears that there are a lot of people coming in over the border. This is obviously one of the subjects that people wanted to impeach you, some people wanted to impeach you over. Is it really that we're getting more people coming in over the border illegally, or is it just the appearance of that? Oh, no, no. The number of encounters at the southern border is very high. But it's very, very important, number one, to contextualize it, and number two, to explain it. From a context perspective, the world is seeing the greatest level of displacement since at least World War II.

2:38I think the recent report was that there are 73 million displaced people in the United States. And so the challenge of migration is not exclusive to the southern border nor to the western hemisphere. It is global. And when I speak to partners across the Atlantic, it's the first issue that they raise, the first challenge that they discuss. What is the reason for that? So, well, one has the customary reasons of displacement, violence, insecurity, poverty, corruption, authoritarian regimes, now increasingly extreme weather events that propel people to leave. why are we experiencing what we are? It is for those very reasons why people leave their countries of origin.

3:30We also remember in our hemisphere, we overcame COVID more rapidly than any other country. We had in a post-COVID world, 11 million jobs to fill. We are a country of choice as a destination. and one takes those two forces and then one considers the fact that we have an immigration system that is broken fundamentally and we have a level of encounter that we do. And when we speak of a broken system, let me just capture that as succinctly as I can. The average time between encounter and the point of final adjudication of an asylum claim is seven plus years. Approximately 70 % of the people who meet an initial threshold for asylum, the credible fear standard, about 70 % qualify.

4:34And so they stay for seven plus years. And the ultimate adjudication, about 20 % qualify. So in our country, if somebody seeks political asylum and they legitimately need political asylum, is it our law that they automatically get it if they have legitimate needs? There's no quotas or anything on how many people we can accept for political asylum? There is no quota on the asylum population, and one just has to persuade a judge. So you've been Homeland Security Secretary under President Biden from the beginning of the administration. So how many people would you say since that time have come in over the border, the southern border, let's say illegally, seeking asylum, they're bringing drugs, whatever they're doing.

5:19I do want to differentiate because we're in a political environment that demonizes individuals encountered at the border and there's a vulnerability to painting with a broad brush people who are fleeing and coming to the United States. And so I want to separate, and I will be incessant in this, separate drug smugglers from individuals seeking asylum, or even, if they don't have a basis to remain in the United States, seeking a better life. And so the number of encounters have been very well published this past month. We had about 134 ,000 encounters. This past month, but let's say since the beginning of the administration, is it millions of people?

6:11It's several million people. Well, there was legislation that was developed, I think, in the Senate, bipartisan legislation, and it got stalled, let's say, in the House. Would that have solved our problem had it passed? It would have been a transformative change in managing the number of people we encounter. What was the main thing that would have been in that law that we don't have now that you would have liked to have? So we would have taken a seven-plus-year time period between the time of encounter and final adjudication and reduced it to as little as 90 days. And that changes an intending migrants risk calculus.

6:50Because if they know that they can stay for multiple years and work and make more money than they can and safely so than in their country of origin, they will decide to make that journey. If they understand that they have to pay their life savings to a smuggling organization only to stay for a matter of weeks, that is a very different risk calculus. The world of migration has changed dramatically over the last even 15 years. We're not dealing with the coyotes that I dealt with as a federal prosecutor where they smuggled two or three people at a time. We're dealing with extraordinarily sophisticated smuggling organizations in a multi-billion dollar industry that is also international.

7:38But that industry, is it one designed to bring drugs into the United States or designed to get people to come to the United States for which they get a fee? It is the latter. But what we are seeing, and it should be unsurprising to everyone, that we're seeing a not quite a merger, I would say a synthesis of transnational criminal organizations and the smuggling organizations. There's so much money to be made. The people who are now coming over, are we separating families? In other words, under the Trump administration, there was a lot of controversy. Children were being separated from parents.

8:13Is that happening now or not happening? No. That was a deliberate practice to deter families from reaching the southern border, was the separation of them. That was condemned across the board. cruelty is not something that is an instrument of a value-based country. And we eliminated that practice. I actually was eliminated, in all fairness, towards the end of the Trump administration. We issued a policy preventing it. And we actually, the president created a family reunification task force that I chair that is actually reuniting separated families. Okay, so President Trump campaigned, when he first campaigned for president, on creating a wall, and I guess some part of the wall was built, but would not a wall have helped somewhat if we had a big wall?

9:07Would that not block people from coming, even though people like to make fun of the wall, and it's expensive? Would it not have had some impact on reducing illegal immigration? So, look, in the 21st century, I wouldn't necessarily propose cementing bollards on the ground and constructing an immovable wall, given the dynamism and, you know, the rapid change in migratory patterns. But I just have to quote Secretary Napolitano. You build a 20-foot wall, they'll build a 21-foot ladder. How can you grow your business from idea to industry leader? Bring your vision to life with smart business buying tools and technology from Amazon Business.

9:55From fast, free shipping to in-depth buying insights and automated purchase approvals, they deliver everything you need to achieve your goals. It's not easy to stand out from the crowd. Simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to AmazonBusiness.com for support. Let's talk about your background. You don't come to the cabinet with the conventional background of many people who have this position. So where were you born? I was born in Havana, Cuba. Really? And what age did you leave? My parents brought my sister and me here to the United States as political refugees when I was about one. And did they come in legally or illegally?

10:35They came in illegally. My father was a bit prescient, although we didn't leave early, but we left early enough. So there isn't that big a Cuban or wasn't that big a Cuban Jewish community, but your mother and father were both Jewish. Your father was Sephardic. Yes. And his ancestors came from? His father was from Turkey, his mother from Poland. And your mother was Ashkenazi Jewish? My mother fled Romania to France, France to Cuba late. Her father lost eight brothers and other family in the concentration camps. They left so late they couldn't get to Israel, and our policies at that time were not as welcoming as one would have hoped at a time of great human distress.

11:34Okay, so they came to the United States legally. Where did they come? So we arrived in Miami, and we lived in Miami until my father found a better work opportunity in Los Angeles, California. You were growing up in Los Angeles? I grew up for most of my life in Los Angeles. And you speak Spanish fluently? I speak it. My grammar is not something that I take great pride in. Okay. So where did you go to high school? I went to Beverly Hills High School. Beverly Hills High School? With a lot of movie stars, kids and things like that? You know, it's interesting that you, would you consider Jack Abramoff a movie star?

12:15No. I don't remember any movie stars. You know, when you hear, probably when everyone hears Beverly Hills High School, they think, you know, of the Clampett family. There were four elementary schools that fed into the high school. Two tended to be of a more affluent community, and the other two were, quite frankly, modest. I grew up in a lower-middle-class-to-middle-class home, never wanting for anything, an incredibly close family. You have siblings? I have three siblings. And are they interested in homeland security or not so much? They are probably recent devotees. Okay. So where did you go to college?

13:00I went to University of California at Berkeley. Okay, so you graduated from there, then you went to law school in Los Angeles? Loyola Law School. All right, so you graduated from law school, and what did you do? I went into a law firm. I wanted to go into public service. This country has given my family everything, and I very much wanted to give back. I wanted to go into public service, and I had my eyes on the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. They required three years of experience, and so I gained three years of experience in a private law firm and then went into the U.S. Attorney's Office.

13:36So you went in as a federal prosecutor, and you were an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles? For eight and a half years, specializing in sophisticated fraud cases. Did you get involved in the campaign when Barack Obama was running for president? Were you involved in his campaign anyway? I was. Okay, so you ultimately get involved in the transition with Barack Obama? Yeah, I led the criminal division of the Department of Justice transition team. And you took a position in the Obama administration initially. What was your position? The position was the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the department that administers the legal immigration system.

14:13All right, and then after that, you got promoted to be the deputy homeland security secretary under Janet Napolitano? Yes. Okay, and so that didn't convince you that this is a complicated area and you shouldn't want to come back as secretary?

14:29Complicated, difficult, challenging, and extraordinarily fulfilled. Right. So you go back after President Obama leaves office. You go back. You join Hale? Wilmer Hale. And you're in what city? Here in Washington. Okay. So you're a partner there. How did you get connected to the Biden administration? Did they remember you from the Obama administration? or? They did. They just called you up and said, guess what? We like you as deputy. Now you can be the secretary. I wouldn't say it was in that way, but I was extraordinarily proud to be contacted by the incoming president, the president-elect, to be considered for the secretary.

15:16And did your family say, you're making a lot of money here. You're way up here in compensation, and you're going to go down here again? Was that a factor? No. You didn't care? Okay. Didn't care, wouldn't be. It is what it is. Okay. So let's talk about the Department of Homeland Security. How many people work at the Department of Homeland Security? About 260 ,000. And are they? The third largest department in the federal government. What are the main parts of it? I know you have certain parts that were put together out of Treasury Department, other things. What are your main divisions? The expanse of our portfolio is extraordinary, from online child sexual exploitation and abuse, crimes of exploitation, human trafficking, to facilitating lawful trade and travel, to search and rescue and security in the Arctic and the Indo-Pacific, to addressing the flooding yesterday and today in Houston, Texas, where we have a number of fatalities.

16:20And the frequency and gravity of extreme weather events is only growing. The cyber attacks from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. It's extraordinary. Do you ever get a weekend off? You don't have to worry about some crisis somewhere? I take, my goal is to take half a Saturday. So a number of people, I think, from Homeland Security and or the CIA or NSA have gone to Capitol Hill and said that TikTok is a danger to our national security. But the public hasn't been given that much detailed information about what the threat is. How much of a threat to our national security is TikTok? The People's Republic of China acts adversely to the interests of the United States in different ways.

17:12One of those ways is through the dissemination of disinformation, the intentional communication of false statements. and TikTok is an extraordinary avenue through which to disseminate disinformation to millions and millions of people. But newspapers can disseminate this information. Why is it, if it's over social media, it's got to be banned? If a newspaper says the kind of same things that is over TikTok, it wouldn't be banned because of the First Amendment. Why is the First Amendment not protecting the TikTok social media devices? Well, it's not to me an issue of the First Amendment. It's an issue of security.

17:58We are talking about a company and an algorithm that is controlled by a foreign state that acts adversely to the interests of the United States, and we have an obligation to protect Americans. But the presumption is that people aren't smart enough to know that it's disinformation and they can't make the decision for themselves. Is that right? Well, we're talking about many, many young people that access TikTok. I would posit that in this country we don't have the level of digital literacy that I think we would all want. We're all vulnerable to disinformation and the reality is that we have an obligation to safeguard against it.

18:47We're talking about the intentional dissemination of false information. Okay, I should disclose that my firm is an investor in ByteDance, so I'm not personally an investor, but my firm did invest in it. So let me go on to another subject then. Okay, so what is... You know, my answers would have stayed the same had I known that at the outset. People who are watching this, you would like to say to them that they are safer today in the United States than they were 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, but we still have big risks. I would say the following. I would say we are safer today than we were yesterday.

19:24The threat landscape is heightened and everyone needs to be vigilant because what we have observed, if one takes a look at the domestic violence that has occurred, whether it is the tragic shooting in Buffalo, New York, in the supermarket, whether it is the July 4th parade in a suburb of Chicago, whether it is Uvalde, Texas, what we have learned is that the individuals, the assailants, were exhibiting signs of radicalization to violence before they committed their heinous acts. And what we, you know, the see something, say something campaign that Secretary Napolitano developed, really, I think, to the general public, speaks of the abandoned backpack at a bus stop or in the airport.

20:22It doesn't necessarily speak to the individual who is exhibiting signs that should cause us all to worry. And so the question is, and what we are building, is an architecture where people understand what the indicia are and know what help they can call. because it's not to call the accountability regime law enforcement because nothing has occurred yet, but to call a trusted source, whether it is a teacher, a faith leader, a mental health practitioner, to say, look, this individual is coming to school in a hazmat suit, or this individual has withdrawn from all social interaction and is communicating messages that speak of an interest in committing a violent act, who do I call, what outreach do I make to prevent something from materializing?

21:29So on the Secret Service, recently I think a candidate running for president, Robert Kennedy's father was assassinated. They didn't have Secret Service protection then. He's asked for Secret Service protection, hasn't received it. Who makes the decision on who gets Secret Service protection when you're running for president? I do. And what we do is we have set up a process. We have defined criteria, and the process provides for a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to make recommendations to me after they have analyzed the factors that we have established. This is a protocol that was established prior to the Trump administration.

22:19And so we resuscitated it. It is apolitical. It is bipartisan. And the factors are apolitical. and I have followed in each instance the recommendation of the bipartisan group. There has been no light between or amongst us. When I worked in the White House 100 years ago or so, it was a president and the vice president got secret service protection. As they do now. But it seems as if a lot of White House aides and other people have secret service protection. It seems like it's proliferated. I mean, how do you decide who gets it if you're a White House aide or not? It is based on a threat assessment.

23:00And very sadly, the threat environment in which we are living is more acute. What about baseball owners? Do they need secret turf protection? You ever thought about that? You know, if I recall my reading of the standings circa this morning, you are safe and secure since you're resting in first place. Thanks for listening. To hear more of my interviews, you can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen.