{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/otherstatements?ContentRecord_id=33f1901b-e8b5-47b8-a90a-f64a843cec40", "Senator Carper Urges the Senate to Confirm Alejandro Mayorkas", "2013-12-20", "2013", "2013-12", "Democrat", "House", "DE", "Thomas Carper", "C000174", "www.carper.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Mr. President\u2014 During my years of public service, I\u2019ve learned that the most important ingredient in enabling organizations to work is leadership. That is the case both in government and the private sector, and in organizations large and small. Part of our shared responsibility here, then, is ensuring that we have effective leaders in place across our federal government.\r\n\r\nAnd, it is every Senator\u2019s constitutional role to provide advice and consent on the President\u2019s nominations in a thorough and timely manner as part of the confirmation process.\r\n\r\nToday we have the opportunity to fill a key leadership post in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)\u2014the role of Deputy Secretary.\r\n\r\nThis Department plays a critical role in protecting our nation from harm. Because of its essential mission, I have been very concerned for many months about the high number of senior level vacancies at DHS. In fact, the Department has been without a Senate confirmed Deputy Secretary since April\u2014or eight full months\u2014and without a Senate confirmed Secretary since early summer.\r\n\r\nEarlier this week we took an important step to address this problem by voting to confirm Jeh Johnson as the next Secretary of DHS with overwhelming bipartisan support. Now we need to keep building that leadership team by confirming Alejandro \u201cAli\u201d Mayorkas as his Deputy.\r\nEverything I have learned about Director Mayorkas over the past year has led me to conclude that he is an exceptional candidate to be the next Deputy Secretary at DHS.\r\n\r\nSome of our Republican friends say that we cannot move forward with consideration of Director Mayorkas\u2019 nomination until the Office of the Inspector General finishes an investigation it began in September 2012 \u2014 15 months ago \u2014 into his management of the complex EB-5 investor visa program. And yesterday we also heard Republicans put forward a new argument that the results of an OIG audit of the broader EB-5 program should somehow disqualify Director Mayorkas.\r\n\r\nRespectfully, I disagree. We have waited long enough. First, I will explain why we can no longer continue to wait for the Office of Inspector General to finish its investigation. And then I will shed some light on why the OIG audit of the EB-5 program is flawed, and in no way disqualifies Director Mayorkas.\r\n\r\nFirst things first: just three days before his confirmation hearing in July, we learned about the Office of the Inspector General investigation into Director Mayorkas in a highly irregular manner, through a leaked email to Congress. In fact, the Inspector General subsequently apologized to Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for this leak.\r\n\r\nThe information that was leaked indicated that in September 2012, the OIG had received allegations about conflicts of interest, misuse of position, and an appearance of impropriety by Director Mayorkas and other agency officials. Importantly, the OIG confirmed that this was not in any way a criminal investigation.\r\n\r\nWe now know that the OIG did not begin investigating these allegations for almost a year after receiving them.\r\n\r\nIdeally I would have preferred that the investigation be completed before moving forward \u2013 and at one point I thought it might be. But based on my staff\u2019s conversations with the Office of the Inspector General I believe that this investigation still has months to go.\r\n\r\nDr. Coburn has said that it is improper for me to inquire about the status of an investigation. That is simply absurd. There is absolutely nothing improper about the Chairman of a Committee seeking an update on the status of, and resources for, a pending investigation.\r\n\r\nAccordingly, in July, Dr. Coburn and I wrote to the IG and urged him to make this investigation a priority. In August, the IG responded and said it would be a priority. The OIG also told my staff that the investigation would be completed in October. In October, Dr. Coburn and I again wrote to the IG asking for a status update. My staff was informed that it would now be completed in December.\r\n\r\nOn December 2nd, a bipartisan group of Committee staff participated in a telephone call with the head of investigations at the OIG to receive another status update. They were told it would likely take two or three more months to complete the investigation.\r\n\r\nTo recap, every time we have spoken with the Office of the Inspector General, we have been told they are just two or three months away from completing this investigation.\r\n\r\nI respect that the OIG must do its job, but we must do ours as well, and we cannot afford to keep waiting two months, every other month, to fill a position as critical as this one.\r\n\r\nDuring this most recent call with the Office of the Inspector General, with bipartisan Committee staff, the OIG once again confirmed that, to date, they have found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by anybody at DHS, including Director Mayorkas.\r\n\r\nGiven that the investigation appears to be months away from conclusion and that its completion date has already slipped several times -- and given the confirmation by the OIG that there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing -- it is time to move forward.\r\n\r\nNow, some of my colleagues continue to say that the allegations they have heard from anonymous sources, or so-called whistleblowers, are very concerning. I wish I could tell you that we were able to investigate these allegations in full. But unfortunately, these anonymous sources have refused to provide any information to the Majority on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. This is, as I understand it, unprecedented.\r\nAccording to Dr. Coburn, his staff has met with six individuals who have raised a number of allegations that he is concerned about. Unfortunately, rather than question the nominee about this matter and give him a chance to respond, Republican members of our Committee boycotted his confirmation hearing and have refused to meet with Director Mayorkas.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve said this to Dr. Coburn before, but I simply do not understand how my Republican friends can refuse to offer Director Mayorkas what I consider to be a simple, common, courtesy: a face to face meeting.\r\n\r\nAgain, we have been denied the opportunity to meet with these anonymous sources. My staff has, however, thoroughly looked into the allegations that have made been made public in a number of letters by Senator Grassley. These allegations cluster around Director Mayorkas\u2019 administration of the EB-5 visa program. It is an extremely complicated program that provides foreign investors an opportunity to immigrate to the United States in exchange for significant investments in job-creating enterprises here.\r\n\r\nThe primary complaint about Director Mayorkas centers around an EB-5 related application by the Gulf Coast Funds Management regional center which has ties to Virginia Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe.\r\n\r\nAnonymous sources have reportedly alleged that Director Mayorkas improperly intervened to help change a draft legal decision so that it would come out in favor of Terry McAuliffe\u2019s former company, Greentech Automotive.\r\n\r\nFirst of all, I think it is important that everybody understands that Greentech did not get what they wanted. I say again, the final decision in this case DID NOT come out in Greentech\u2019s favor.\r\n\u2003\r\nSecond, it is important to note that the author of the Greentech decision -- the former head of the Administrative Appeals Office at US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Mr. Perry Rhew told my staff just last week that he strongly disputed the allegation that Director Mayorkas had inappropriately influenced this decision. \u2003\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s right. The one person that my staff was able to identify in Senator Grassley\u2019s letters directly contradicted the comments attributed to him, and the main allegations raised against Director Mayorkas in those letters.\r\n\r\nSome of the other allegations that have been made public about Director Mayorkas\u2019 management of the EB-5 program contend that applications appear to have been processed without sufficient regard to security concerns. \u2003\r\nHowever, in reviewing the leaked emails that were attached to these accusations, Director Mayorkas actually says the exact opposite. For example, in an email to subordinates on January 30 this year concerning an application for a Regional Center in Las Vegas, Director Mayorkas says: \u201cwe will take the time needed to resolve the security issue and we will not act until we have achieved resolution. I agree that we need to run enhanced security and integrity checks.\u201d\r\n\r\nAre these the actions of someone who is trying to exert improper influence or subvert security checks? I think any fair minded person would agree that the answer is NO!\r\n\r\nEven our Committee\u2019s Ranking Member, Dr. Coburn has said that the allegations against Mr. Mayorkas, although serious, are most likely not grounded in reality. In reference to the allegations against Mr. Mayorkas, Dr. Coburn said last week, \u201cI doubt they are true, but we do not have the facts.\u201d\r\n\r\nI agree with Dr. Coburn. We don\u2019t have any facts pointing to any sort of wrong doing by Director Mayorkas at all. Once again, none of the anonymous sources have presented information to the Majority regarding their concerns.\r\n\r\nWe do know the names of the dozens of people\u2014people with impeccable credentials from both sides of the aisle\u2014who think the world of Director Mayorkas.\r\n\r\nOne of them is Jane Holl Lute, the last Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. She said: \u201cAs I have come to know Ali, I can tell you that he asks no more of others than he does of himself, and, in leading by example, sets a standard of excellence for all who consider themselves committed to public service. In my view, Homeland Security could be in no better hands.\u201d\r\n\r\nWe also heard from a number of officials in the George W. Bush Administration, including the last Senate-confirmed Inspector General, Richard Skinner, President Bush\u2019s Homeland Security Advisor, Kenneth Wainstein, and the three most senior border security officials for President Bush\u2014Robert Bonner, Ralph Basham, and Jason Ahern.\r\n\r\nIn fact, Ralph Basham, the last Senator-confirmed Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection\u2014and the former head of the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration\u2014urged us to move forward with Director Mayorkas\u2019 nomination despite the OIG\u2019s investigation.\r\n\r\nHe said, and I quote: \u201cThere is no reason to wait. If this were an investigation of criminal wrongdoing by a competent investigative law enforcement agency, the Committee might be justified in delaying action. But the allegations, as I understand them, are at most as to whether an agency head used his discretionary authority to take a meeting and review a case and a program that was under his supervision.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis is what one of the most distinguished national security voices in the George W. Bush Administration\u2014a man who has led four different component agencies within DHS\u2014thinks. I could not agree more. It is time to move forward.\r\n\r\nLastly, I\u2019d like to discuss this new OIG audit of the EB-5 program that was released to Congress yesterday. I specifically want to address my Republican colleagues\u2019 contention that this flawed audit somehow confirms that Director Mayorkas failed to take national security seriously.\r\n\r\nThe truth is that for years Director Mayorkas has been proactively addressing national security and fraud concerns in the EB-5 program.\r\n\r\n18 months ago, in June of 2012, Director Mayorkas and his team approached the Chairman and Ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee with concerns about potential national security vulnerabilities in the EB-5 program. Director Mayorkas asked Congress, again 18 months ago, for the legal authority that he needed to fully address these vulnerabilities \u2013 authority only Congress could provide.\r\n\r\nDo you know what Congress did? Nothing! Congress dealt Director Mayorkas and his agency a bad hand when we reauthorized the EB-5 program in September 2012. We failed to give the agency the legal authorities that Director Mayorkas and his team at USCIS specifically requested to enable them to address the national security and fraud vulnerabilities that it could not address on its own.\r\n\r\nEarlier this year, I was glad to see that Senator Leahy added an amendment to the Immigration Reform bill that made virtually all of the national security fixes that Director Mayorkas had requested 18 months ago. While the bill passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support, it is unfortunately stalled in the House.\r\n\r\nIt strikes me as grossly unfair to punish Director Mayorkas for Congress\u2019 inability to address the vulnerabilities in the EB-5 program that Director Mayorkas and his team brought to our attention and asked us to fix.\r\n\r\nKeep this in mind when you hear my colleagues across the aisle say that Director Mayorkas failed to take national security concerns seriously. The people who failed to take these concerns seriously are those of us here in Congress.\r\n\r\nI think this is a good time to set the record straight regarding some of the Office of the Inspector General\u2019s findings in this recently completed EB-5 audit report\u2014because this audit remarkably misses some key facts.\r\n\r\nFirst of all, the report says the EB-5 program is vulnerable to fraud and national security risks, and that the legislation that created the program makes it difficult to fully address these risks. Incredibly, the OIG Audit report makes no mention of the efforts that Director Mayorkas undertook \u2013beginning 18 months ago -- to get Congress to pass legislation to address these vulnerabilities.\r\nIn the absence of being granted those authorities by us \u2013 Congress \u2013 Director Mayorkas took it upon himself to implement whatever reforms he could with his agency\u2019s current legal authorities. Again, many of these reforms took place before, or during, this audit\u2014and yet, once again incredibly, they are not even mentioned in the report.\r\n\r\nOne of Director Mayorkas\u2019 first actions was to elevate the Fraud Detection and National Security office to a Directorate, reporting directly to him. This ensured that national security professionals had a seat at the management table, and a voice in all major decisions.\r\n\r\nHe expanded reporting requirements and security checks for Regional Centers, which led USCIS to increase the number of national security investigations in the EB-5 program by more than 50 percent in the past four years.\r\n\r\nHe increased EB-5 staffing from nine people in 2009 to more than 80 today, and hired senior economists and national security officers to work with immigration specialists.\r\n\r\nAnd, he proactively engaged other agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI, and the Treasury Department to help police the program.\r\n\r\nIn fact, Senator Grassley noted this week that Director Mayorkas convened a National Security Staff working group to examine the program last year. That\u2019s right, Director Mayorkas was the impetus for the very national security working group that Senator Coburn has cited as evidence that he is somehow ignoring national security concerns. Talk about no good deed going unpunished.\r\n\r\nThe audit report says that the program is fraught with the perception of outside influence. It\u2019s true. USCIS receives 1,500 queries about the EB-5 program each year from Congress\u20141,500! In fact almost half of my Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle have inquired about EB-5 cases since 2009.\r\n\r\nBut let me be clear. The fact that this program garners a lot of attention and that Members of Congress and other high level elected officials from both parties inquire frequently about the status and prospects of pending applications does not mean that USCIS adjudicators are swayed by the attention. Perception is not always reality.\r\n\r\nContrary to what some have suggested or assumed, the OIG reported in its audit that all of the files they reviewed in their audit \u2013 including the ones associated with Terry McAuliffe\u2019s company \u2013 appeared to support the final decisions.\r\n\r\nLet me say that again\u2014the OIG audit concluded that the evidence it reviewed in the Terry McAuliffe case supported the final decision. The final decision that Mr. Perry Rhew told my staff that he made, without being influenced by Director Mayorkas.\r\n\r\nBased on the evidence that we have before us, it is clear that Director Mayorkas has taken strong steps to improve the EB-5 program. These are the actions of a dedicated, thoughtful, and committed public servant.\r\nThey are the actions of a leader who is willing to make tough \u2013 but necessary \u2013 decisions in order to shake things up and improve a program. That is exactly the kind of leadership we need at DHS and across the federal government.\r\n\r\nLet me close by once again pointing out that we have been unable to meet with the six individuals who have made these anonymous allegations. And it is frankly impossible for us to interview all 18,000 employees at USCIS. But just the other day, the Partnership for Public Service issued its rankings of the best places to work in the federal government in 2013, based on interviews it undertook with federal employees in 300 agencies.\r\n\r\nI was dismayed to find out that the Department of Homeland Security ranked last in employee morale on their list of Cabinet Departments. However, one of the bright spots for DHS was U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. In fact, it was one of the highest ranked components within DHS, coming in at 76 out of 300 federal agencies. And after Alejandro Mayorkas took over in 2009, employee satisfaction with senior leadership increased by more than 20 percent.\r\n\r\nThat says a lot about the kind of leadership that Alejandro Mayorkas has brought to USCIS and will bring to the Department of Homeland Security if he is confirmed. I would urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting yes today.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/otherstatements?ContentRecord_id=33f1901b-e8b5-47b8-a90a-f64a843cec40"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8547508623450994, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}