Senate confirms Mayorkas as Biden's homeland security chief

Photo: The Canadian Press

Alejandro Mayorkas

The U.S. Senate confirmed Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday as President Joe Biden's homeland security secretary, the first Latino to fill a post that will have a central role in the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, a sweeping Russia-linked cyber hack and domestic extremism.

Mayorkas was confirmed by a 56-43 vote, the narrowest margin yet for a Biden Cabinet nominee. The first immigrant to serve in the job, he will lead a broad policy overhaul of an agency that was accused of being deeply politicized as it carried out President Donald Trump’s initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.

Mayorkas is a former federal prosecutor who previously served as a senior DHS official. His nomination was stalled in the Senate by Republicans who wanted to question him further on Biden's plans for immigration policy. He also faced questions over his management of an investor visa program under President Barack Obama.

Biden's team had hoped to have Mayorkas confirmed by Jan. 20. But Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri placed a hold before the inauguration, forcing a delay in the confirmation vote.

Democrats bristled at the delay.

“My friends on the other side don’t have to agree with Mr. Mayorkas on the finer points of every policy, but surely we can all agree that he knows the department, he understands the threats to our nation’s security and has what it takes to lead DHS,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said as he called for a vote to lift a Republican filibuster on the nomination.

Even some Republican senators who had expressed reservations about the nomination conceded that the DHS needed a confirmed secretary with the nation facing so many challenges, including the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election.

“I drove through the National Guard again to get here this morning. We’ve got some real issues,” Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said as he voted to send the nomination from the committee to the full Senate for the vote.

Portman was among a half-dozen Republicans who ultimately voted in favour of the nomination. Mayorkas was sworn in by Vice-President Kamala Harris later Tuesday.

Mayorkas, whose family came to the U.S. from Cuba as refugees in 1960 and whose mother had fled the Holocaust, was a federal prosecutor in Southern California before he joined the Obama administration, first as head of the immigration services agency and then as deputy secretary of DHS.

“Mr. Mayorkas is uniquely qualified to make sure the Department of Homeland Security is working to protect people from all backgrounds, all communities and all walks of life,” Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat and chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said from the Senate floor.