President-elect Joe Biden’s intended nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, described the U.S. immigration system as “broken” and called for the creation of a new one to stimulate the economy as it recovers from the pandemic.
At a virtual summit meant to spur congressional action on immigration reforms in the new year, the Obama-era DHS appointee said the economy relies on both legal and illegal immigrants working in the United States, and the country could create more jobs, raise wages, and grow the economy by unveiling a “new immigration system.”
“Our immigration system is badly broken, and we all know it,” Mayorkas said in Zoom remarks before the American Business Immigration Coalition. “The cost of that broken system is incalculably high. It represents a profound toll not only on families seeking to contribute to our nation and forge their own American dream but on our economic prosperity and our moral authority as well.”
The call for repairs comes weeks ahead of the arrival of a new Congress in Washington and the Biden administration later in January.
Mayorkas is an immigrant who came to the U.S. as a child after escaping the communist regime in Cuba. He said that many immigrants in the U.S., regardless of legal status, are “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic and critical for national economic growth. Mayorkas said Democrats and Republicans should unite to improve the system legislatively in a way that reflects the “broad sweep and impact of immigration across issues and constituencies because key sectors of our economy, from agriculture to technology, rely on immigration.”
“We must bring to an immediate end the inhumane and unjust treatment of immigrants,” he said. “There is no more powerful and heartbreaking example of that inhumanity than the separation of children from their parents.”
Mayorkas was the deputy secretary of the DHS during the final four years of the Obama administration and led the Citizenship and Immigration Services during President Barack Obama’s first term. He oversaw the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an executive action that permits illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to apply for a reprieve from deportation and the ability to work in the country. He worked for three decades in the government, starting at the Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California and then as a federal prosecutor.
