Biden DHS nominee Mayorkas says ICE should not be defunded, despite liberal calls

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Alejandro Mayorkas, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should not be defunded -- while not saying whether parts of the border wall should be dismantled.

During a Senate confirmation hearing, Mayorkas was asked by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., if he supports defunding ICE -- something that has been a rallying cry for liberal activists and some Democratic lawmakers in recent years.

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"No," Mayorkas said. Later he said that ICE was one of a number of agencies that plays "critical roles" and that he would not abolish.

The comments by Mayorkas indicate that while the Biden administration intends to take a significantly different approach to the Trump administration, it will not go as far left as some in the party have called for. Biden has, however, promised a moratorium on ICE deportations.

Activists have also called for the wall at the southern border to be deconstructed. Biden has promised that he won’t allow "another foot" of the wall to be built during his administration but has not said anything about removing construction.

When asked if he would recommend dismantling the wall, Mayorkas said he hasn’t looked at that specific question. He said, however, that he agreed with the approach of the late Sen. John McCain that the wall is "not a monolithic challenge."

"The border is varied depending on the geography, depending on the specific venue and depending on the conduct of individuals around it and we don’t need, nor should we have a monolithic answer to that varied and diverse challenge," he said.

When asked if sees areas of the border that are in need of more technology or an expansion of barriers, he again said it was something that needed study.

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"I look forward to studying that because I am aware of the challenges that the border presents, I am very well aware of the fact…that traffickers are seeing to exploit the border and not only to move people across it illegally, but to move contraband, to move fentanyl, the narco traffickers have sought to exploit the current challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic and I look forward to studying the border to make sure those challenges are repelled," Mayorkas said.

Mayorkas is a former director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and is also credited as being a key official involved in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that gave protection to illegal immigrants who came to the country as children.

He also faced a grilling from multiple Republican senators over a scathing inspector general report that found that he intervened to help foreign investors in the EB-5 visa program who were connected to top Democrats.

In three EB-5 cases, each involving high-profile Democrats, Mayorkas intervened "outside the normal adjudicatory process" and "in ways that benefited the stakeholders," the report found.

Mayorkas defended his conduct on Tuesday, saying he had been involved in a number of cases and objected to the use of the word "intervened" to describe his behavior.

He also said the program faced a number of problems and he implemented a number of reforms to fix what was universally acknowledged as a program in need of reform.

"It is my job to become involved, to learn the problems the agency confronts, to become involved in the problems and to fix them and that's what I did in this case and the many cases that came before me that were presented to me from both sides of the aisle," he said.

Asked what he had learned from the controversy, he said: "I learned that individuals in the EB-5 investor program and in the agency may not have full visibility of all that I am involved in and all that I do, as a leader and therefore they may take a slice of my actions and gather misperceptions of what fuels me as a leader and what drives me as a government servant."

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Mayorkas is likely to be confirmed by the chamber and has received a broad range of endorsements from law enforcement groups. Former acting DHS chief Chad Wolf said recently that Mayorkas is "qualified."

"I do think he's qualified. Are his views and his policies the one that I would have picked? Probably not," he said on ABC News. "But that's not to say he's not qualified, just like I'm sure he would say, my views and policies are not his liking either."