Former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Biden administration should have moved sooner to tighten the southern border, conceding ground on a critique that fueled Republican attacks on the department he ran for four years.
Mayorkas made the comments Tuesday at the Politico Security Summit, one of his few public appearances since leaving office in January 2025.
Mayorkas blamed what he called a "broken immigration system" with a "low bar" for admission based on a "credible fear of persecution."
Asked whether earlier action might have blunted President Donald Trump's path back to the White House, he declined to speculate, saying he "would be far more better rested and less punched."
The remarks revisit a fight that defined his tenure.
President Joe Biden waited until June 4, 2024, to invoke Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and suspend most asylum processing at the southern border once daily encounters topped a seven-day average of 2,500.
The accompanying interim final rule from DHS and the Justice Department took effect June 5, raising the screening threshold and ending the practice of asking migrants whether they feared return.
"I was very pleased that in June of 2024, we took executive action that, I thought, made reforms that were sensible and that proved successful," Mayorkas said.
He said the tougher posture, paired with expanded lawful pathways, drove migrant numbers down "70[%], 75%."
Federal data shows that encounters at ports of entry along the southwest border fell by more than 60% from May 2024 to December 2024.
Mayorkas became the first sitting Cabinet secretary impeached in nearly 150 years when the House voted 214 to 213 on Feb. 13, 2024, charging him with willful refusal to enforce immigration law and breach of the public trust.
The Senate dismissed both articles on April 17, 2024, in party-line votes, finding the allegations did not clear the constitutional threshold.
The comments come as the Trump administration's enforcement push faces its own backlash.
Federal officers killed two American citizens in Minneapolis in January during Operation Metro Surge: Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. Good was shot by an ICE agent; Pretti was shot by Customs and Border Protection officers.
Both shootings drew protests, lawsuits, and congressional scrutiny and contributed to the ouster of Mayorkas' successor, Kristi Noem.
Mayorkas defended his former department against Democrat calls for major overhauls, saying DHS is "more fit for purpose than it ever has been."
He praised current Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the former Oklahoma senator confirmed 54 to 45 on March 23 and sworn in the next day, for focusing on the DHS workforce.
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