The Biden-Harris transition team has and is expected to nominate lots of “firsts” to their Cabinet in the coming weeks. Avril Haines has been nominated as the first woman Director of National Intelligence. Janet Yellen is poised to be nominated as the first woman to lead Treasury, and Michèle Flournoy is in the short-list for Department of Defense Secretary, and would become the first woman to hold the position. Another “first” has made headlines: Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban-born immigrant, was nominated by President-elect Biden on Monday as Secretary of Homeland Security. He would be the first Latino—and immigrant—to hold the consequential position.
The Department of Homeland Security oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under the Trump administration, the department has been mired in controversy—from the attempted rescission of DACA to the child-separation policy. Immigration advocates are hopeful for more humane and sensitive policies under the Biden administration and Mayorkas’ leadership. The Biden transition team has emphasized that he will “play a critical role in fixing our broken immigration system.”
Mayorkas was born in Havana, Cuba to refuge parents. He spent his childhood in Miami before moving with his family to Los Angeles. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and holds a law degree from Loyola Law School.
Mayorkas began his career in government service at the Justice Department, where he served as Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California, eventually becoming the youngest United States Attorney in the Nation. Under the Obama-Biden Administration, he served as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2016, and as the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2009 to 2013. Outside of government, he has led a distinguished career in the private sector, at O’Melveny & Myers and most recently at WilmerHale, specializing in strategic counseling and crisis management. Additionally, he serves on several non-profits focused on refugee resettlement and providing legal services and education to the underprivileged.
During his DHS tenure under President Obama, Mayorkas led the development and implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Additionally, he led the department’s response to the Ebola and Zika outbreaks, helped administer the Blue Campaign to combat human trafficking, and developed an emergency relief program for orphans following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. He also created the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate to ensure the integrity of the immigration system.
Based on his record and personal experience, immigration advocates see a brighter future under Mayorka’s DHS. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, which helps refugees resettle in the United States, called the appointment a “big win for immigrant representation.” “His nomination represents a shift from DHS Secretaries that have been complicit in the heartless and illegal separation of migrant families to a tested leader responsible for implementing the DACA program and protecting more than 700,000 DREAMers from deportation,” said the president of the organization, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah.
To learn more about other Latinos announced to work under the Biden White House, click here.