Joe Biden Seeks Fast-Track Approval for DHS Pick Alejandro Mayorkas

President-elect Joe Biden is looking to fast-track United States Senate approval of his nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Alejandro Mayorkas.

Sources close to Biden’s transition team told Politico that they are making “a major push” for Mayorkas’ confirmation in the Senate, among others, seeking support from Senate Republicans:

The top priority for the Biden team is confirming Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, the source said, who added that the messaging push will take place in every forum, in and out of Congress. [Emphasis added]

Biden officials are also expected to advocate for quick confirmation of Defense secretary-designate Lloyd Austin, secretary of State pick Antony Blinken and Avril Haines as director of national intelligence. Austin must also get House approval for a waiver to the law barring recently retired military officers from serving as Defense secretary. His first hearing on that matter is Tuesday.
[Emphasis added]

Reports confirmed on Tuesday that Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Rob Portman (R-OH) of the Senate Homeland Security Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Mayorkas on January 19 so as to quickly allow Biden to fill the empty DHS spot.

The business lobby has been touting Mayorkas with a lobbying effort to get him confirmed, as they see his nomination as a path to expanded immigration to the U.S. – a boon to their profit margins.

Mayorkas is expected to lead Biden’s immigration agenda, which includes a push for an amnesty for the majority of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., as well as an elimination of President Trump’s cooperative asylum agreements with Central America, an end to the “Remain in Mexico” policy, and repeated increases of H-2B visas for the business lobby.

Previously, Mayorkas served as deputy secretary at DHS under the Obama administration, where the Inspector General (IG) at the time unveiled that he had improperly helped secure EB-5 visas for well-connected wealthy foreign nationals.

In 2015, the IG noted that Mayorkas had been reported by multiple staffers at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency for intervening in three specific EB-5 visa cases where foreign investors had been denied visas. In each of the cases, Mayorkas intervened on behalf of the foreign investors in order to appeal the decisions and secure them visas.

Likewise, a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that Mayorkas ignored asylum fraud while heading USCIS, where oftentimes no asylum fraud cases were referred to the U.S. attorney’s office for years.

Most recently, financial disclosure reports revealed that Mayorkas worked as a corporate attorney representing the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Cisco Systems, T-Mobile, Intuit, and the Wall Street firm Blackstone.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.