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Who is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas? Career, family, net worth...

Alejandro Mayorkas’ family fled communist Cuba when he was just a baby. For over 30 years he has had a career in law enforcement and as a private lawyer.

Alejandro Mayorkas: Career, family, net worth
KEVIN LAMARQUEREUTERS

House Republicans have transmitted two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate over his handling of the border crisis.

The procession launches a trial in the Democratic-controlled Senate, which is expected to dismiss the charges without a trial or hold a trial that will not end in a conviction.

Mayorkas is the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached since 1876.

The proceedings were initiated by Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene on the basis that Mayorkas failed to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants over the US-Mexican border.

Who is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas? Career, family, net worth...

Mayorkas was born in Havana, Cuba in 1959, the same year that Fidel Castro came to power in the Cuban Revolution. His parents were both of Jewish background, his father born on the island, his mother’s family escaped the Holocaust.

When he was just a year old, his family fled the island nation under communist control resettling in Florida and later southern California where he spent the rest of his youth.

He is married to Tanya Mayorkas and they currently reside in Washington DC. The couple has two daughters.

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Alejandro Mayorkas: Career

Mayorkas graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with distinction in 1981 and then earned his law degree from Loyola Law School in 1985. After a few years of practicing law in the private sector, he became Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California in 1989. Nine years later he was appointed United States Attorney for the Central District of California by President Bill Clinton, just 39 at the time that made him the youngest ever in the nation.

In 2001, he went into private practice again, joining the international law firm O’Melveny & Myers, the oldest law firm in Los Angeles, as a litigation partner. Seven years later he was tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to lead the transition team responsible for the US Department of Justice’s Criminal Division for the incoming administration.

He joined the Obama administration in 2009 when the Senate confirmed him as the Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services. In 2013, he became the Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security where he served until 2016.

Once again, he returned to private practice joining the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr as a partner at their headquarters in Washington DC. Four years later President-elect Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Mayorkas to be US Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. In 2021 he became the first Latino and immigrant confirmed to the post.

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Alejandro Mayorkas: Net worth

Mayorkas has had a “distinguished 30-year career as a law enforcement official and a nationally recognized lawyer in the private sector” according to his bio. Over that time, he has amassed a net worth of around $8 million according to previous reporting and his current financial disclosure statement.

Almost two thirds of his career has been in public sector jobs, which come with modest salaries compared to the private sector. His current position pays him about $200,000 a year. But his spells practicing law in the private sector have been fructiferous, with his last as a partner at a law firm providing a good portion of his wealth.

The year after Mayorkas joined the Obama administration, he purchased a home in Washington DC for $1.6 million according to Forbes. His financial disclosure records state that he currently has a 30-year mortgage, that he signed in 2020, for between $500,000 and $1 million.

According to a financial disclosure before he joined the Biden administration he listed a $3.3 million partnership share from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr along with an additional expected future payment in excess of $1 million.

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