Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas is the seventh United States Secretary of Homeland Security, sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on February 2, 2021, after a 56–43 vote in the Senate. The Havana, Cuba-born Mayorkas is the first immigrant and Latin American to head the department.

Mayorkas, who is fully vaccinated, tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday. During the Obama administration, he served in Homeland Security as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services from 2009 to 2013, and as deputy secretary from 2013 to 2016.

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Mayorkas became an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California in 1989, prosecuting a wide range of federal crimes, most notably in Operation PolarCap, then the largest money laundering case in the nation, for which he received an award from FBI Director Louis Freeh. His successful prosecutions led to convictions in two telemarketing fraud operations that targetted the elderly, and a health care fraud and insurance fraud conspiracy.

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In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed Mayorkas as the United States Attorney for the Central District of California. He oversaw the prosecution of the Mexican Mafia, white supremacist Buford O Furrow Jr for the murder of a federal postal worker and shooting of children at a Jewish community center Los Angeles, the prosecution of Litton Industries for the payment of bribes abroad.

Born November 24, 1959, Mayorkas‘ family fled for Florida shortly after the Cuban Revolution and later settled in California. He graduated from UC Berkeley in history with honors, and earned his Juris Doctor from Loyola Marymount University.

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Mayorkas was a member of the presidential transition team for Barack Obama, leading the team responsible for the US Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. Mayorkas implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process in two months. In 2008, The National Law Journal named Mayorkas one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.”