Nomination of Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas

Floor Speech

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I stand before you and my colleagues today to speak in support of the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

There is no question that Ali Mayorkas is qualified for this position. He previously served as the Director of U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, then as Deputy Secretary at DHS.

Today, I want to tell you about Ali Mayorkas's story. I want to tell you why he is the right pick for this position. And I want to tell you why we can achieve what we need to with Mr. Mayorkas leading the Department of Homeland Security.

During his hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, my fellow committee members and I had a chance to hear from Mr. Mayorkas and hear his family history.

He told us the harrowing story of his family fleeing persecution, traveling to a new country in search of freedom, acceptance, and a safe place to call home.

During the Holocaust, Mr. Mayorkas's mother lost her paternal grandparents and seven of her uncles simply for being Jewish--simply because of the faith they practiced. His mother and his maternal grandparents fled, but they fled in order to survive.

But the story of Mr. Mayorkas's family was far from over. His parents fled Cuba during Castro's revolution, bringing Mr. Mayorkas and his sister here to the United States in 1960. They came here as refugees searching for freedom, searching for acceptance, searching for safety.

Ali Mayorkas is an American success story. He came here as a child. His family made a life here. He pursued an education. He dedicated his life to public service. He worked hard to give back to the Nation that gave his family so much.

And now, Mr. Mayorkas has volunteered to serve his country once again. In this new role, he will work to keep our Nation safe and secure while ensuring that we treat all human beings with dignity and respect.

Under the last Presidential administration, we saw unimaginable cruelty--family members separated from each other, children taken from their mothers' arms. We saw a total disregard of the struggles of refugees facing persecution in their home countries and making the heartbreaking choice to leave and make the dangerous journey to the United States.

I know that under the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas, our Department of Homeland Security will strive to uphold the values of our Nation. He will also bring much needed stability to the Department. He will work to reverse the cruel and heartless policies of the previous administration. He will work to protect Dreamers and TPS holders. He will work on smart solutions to secure our border. And he will work with Congress to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform. That is not all he will do at the DHS.

Under Mr. Mayorkas's leadership, he will work to ensure the safety and security of our homeland--the homeland he was brought to as a child, the homeland that he and his family have made their own. I spoke of the persecution that Ali Mayorkas's family faced during the Holocaust--a threat of anti-Semitism and White supremacy. Well, it still persists today, and it is growing right here in the United States and everywhere across the globe.

Last year, a DHS assessment concluded that ``racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists--specifically white supremacist extremists--will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.''

We have seen that violent extremism in action. We saw it on January 6 in this very city against this legislative body and in this very Chamber. When I asked Ali Mayorkas about this issue during our committee hearing, he made clear that he understands the threat that White supremacy, anti-Semitism, and extremism pose to the health of our Nation and to the health of our democracy.

If we are going to fight hatred and violent extremism, we need someone leading the charge who understands and takes seriously the threat to all Americans--the threats to our children, to our schools, to our workplaces, and to our places of worship. He is committed to addressing online radicalization and strengthening the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to ensure that houses of worship and other nonprofit organizations are kept safe from potential terror attacks.

So whether it is combating extremism, foreign or domestic terrorism, cyber attacks, or adversaries from abroad, Mr. Mayorkas expressed a clear commitment to keeping our Nation safe and is fully prepared and qualified to serve as the head of DHS.

Ali Mayorkas is the right pick to lead this Department, and I urge swift confirmation so that he can get to work immediately for us and our country. I will vote for Ali Mayorkas, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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