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“NOMINATION OF ALEJANDRO NICHOLAS MAYORKAS” mentioning Chuck Grassley was published in the Senate section on pages S190-S191 on Jan. 28.
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The publication is reproduced in full below:
NOMINATION OF ALEJANDRO NICHOLAS MAYORKAS
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, the Senate is considering the nomination of Mr. Mayorkas to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security. I come to the floor at this point, before we vote on that motion today, to raise questions about whether or not he should be in that position as Secretary of Homeland Security and the fact that I will be voting negative.
I am familiar with Mr. Mayorkas from my past oversight of the EB-5 investment visa program. From 2009 until 2013, Mr. Mayorkas served as Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers that EB-5 visa program.
During that time, more than 15 whistleblowers approached my office to raise questions about Mr. Mayorkas and his management of the EB-5 program. The whistleblowers allege that Mr. Mayorkas was intervening in routine and technical matters that were not typically handled by the Director of that Division. They also alleged that he was doing so at the request of well-connected Democratic politicians and other politically connected stakeholders.
As my colleagues are aware, I have long criticized the fraud and abuse that are rampant in the EB-5 program, and I have continually reintroduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Leahy to reform the program. So it shouldn't be a surprise to any of my colleagues that when I hear from 15 different whistleblowers anything about the EB-5 program, I would further investigate it.
I have also conducted consistent oversight of the EB-5 program across Presidential administrations, whether they were Democrat or Republican. So when whistleblowers approach my office with these serious allegations, as I said before, I am determined to get to the bottom of these matters.
One of the cases in which whistleblowers said Mr. Mayorkas had intervened involved a company with ties to former Secretary Clinton's brother, Anthony Rodham.
Mr. Rodham's company wasn't happy with the speed with which its applications were being conducted by the Customs and Immigration Service, so company representatives made repeated inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security and Mr. Mayorkas. And they did this in an effort to get Mr. Mayorkas to speed things up.
My investigation found that between 2010 and 2013, Mr. Mayorkas had nearly a dozen contacts with that company, including direct communications with its attorneys. Mr. Mayorkas forwarded requests from the company along to his team, marking at least one of those forwarded messages as ``high priority.'' He became heavily involved in the process of revising a draft of a technical decision from his Division's Administrative Appeals Office that was initially unfavorable to the company. So, because of his involvement, in the end, th opinion was rewritten in a manner that was much more favorable to Mr. Rodham's company.
In 2013, I wrote Mr. Mayorkas five letters about his management of the EB-5 program. In those letters, I asked him detailed questions in order to get his side of the story, and when he didn't answer my initial questions, I wrote him repeatedly to follow up.
At this point, it has been more than 7 years, and I still have not received answers to more than 25 specific questions that I asked during that 2013 investigation.
Following his nomination to serve as Department of Homeland Security Secretary, I wrote to Mr. Mayorkas again on January 15 to raise my concerns and to provide him yet another opportunity to answer my questions. He sent me a very short response on January 19 that--can you believe this?--still failed to answer most of the questions that I was trying to get answers for.
It is very important for nominees confirmed by this body to be responsive to congressional oversight requests. Mr. Mayorkas consistently refused to respond to my questions, and that should concern all of us in the U.S. Senate because no Senator should be denied answers to his questions doing proper oversight of the executive branch.
Furthermore, we now know that many of the whistleblower allegations made to my office were accurate. Many whistleblowers who approached my office raised similar concerns with John Roth, the Obama-appointed inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security at that time, who released his office's report detailing its investigation into these matters way back in 2015.
In that 2015 report, Inspector General Roth found that ``employees' belief that Mr. Mayorkas favored certain politically powerful EB-5 stakeholders was reasonable.'' That is the end of quote of the inspector general's report.
The IG also said that the number and variety of witnesses who came forward in his investigation was ``highly unusual.'' Allegations didn't come from one or two disgruntled employees, according to the inspector general; they came from current and retired career and noncareer members of the Senior Executive Service, as well as all levels of supervisors, immigration officers, attorneys, and employees involved in fraud detection and in national security.
According to Inspector General Roth, the fact ``[t]hat so many individuals were willing to step forward and tell . . . what happened
[was] evidence of deep resentment about Mr. Mayorkas's actions related to the EB-5 program.'' That is the end of quote from the IG report.
The IG also found that Mr. Mayorkas's actions ``created an appearance of favoritism and special access'' in some EB-5 adjudication matters and that he ``created specific processes and revised existing policies in the EB-5 program to accommodate specific parties.''
In addition to the case involving Mr. Rodham's company, other cases reviewed by the inspector general involved well-connected Democrats, including former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
In each of the cases reviewed by the inspector general where Mr. Mayorkas had intervened, the IG found that ``but for Mr. Mayorkas's intervention, the matter would have been decided differently.''
Witnesses were also fearful, and some only spoke to the IG after being assured of anonymity. One whistleblower told my office they were extremely uncomfortable in meetings with Mr. Mayorkas.
Mr. Mayorkas's actions raised serious concerns in 2013 when he was nominated to serve as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security during President Obama's second term. It is why he couldn't be confirmed to that role until after then-Majority Leader Harry Reid invoked the nuclear option on nominations. Not a single Republican Senator was willing to support his confirmation then, and no Senator should support it at this time.
Finally, I am concerned that Mr. Mayorkas did not seem to express any regret whatsoever for his previous actions during his recent confirmation hearing before the Homeland Security Committee. Instead, he appeared to take the view that interfering in EB-5 cases on behalf of well-connected politicians and stakeholders was somehow the same as casework help offered to Americans who experienced problems with the international adoption systems. It was a baffling comparison.
Now, every one of us Senators knows that when a nominee for the Cabinet or Subcabinet comes before our committee, they are always asked questions by Senators--for sure, I do it: Will you respond to our oversight letters, phone calls, or appearing before our committee? And every one of them says yes, but not every one of them--how would you say it? Not every one of them keeps their word, I guess is what I should say. So I suggest to them, if you really want to be honest to take that oath to answer in an honest fashion, maybe when you have that question asked, ``Will you respond to requests from committee members in our oversight work?'' you ought to say ``maybe'' instead of saying
``yes.''
Anyway, I think it is very clear that I strongly oppose Mr. Mayorkas's confirmation, and I urge all of my colleagues to reject it as well.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
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