Politics
He took on L.A.’s street gangs. For Mayorkas, impeachment ‘does not rattle me’
This isn’t the kind of history Alejandro N. Mayorkas wanted to make.
The son of immigrants who fled Cuba and settled in Beverly Hills when he was a child, Mayorkas was tapped in 2021 by President Biden to become the first Latino head of the nation’s Department of Homeland Security.
Decades earlier, he made a reputation as the country’s youngest U.S. attorney in 1998, leading the Central District of California based in Los Angeles at 38.
In recent months, however, Mayorkas, 64, has found himself in a far less flattering historical spotlight: targeted to become the first U.S. Cabinet official impeached in nearly 150 years.
“I knew I was entering an extraordinarily polarizing environment, an environment where norms were in jeopardy, where civility was not always respected,” he said of his mind-set when he became secretary. “I didn’t assume this. It doesn’t rattle me, though.”
House Republicans, eyeing chaos at the border as a path to regain control of the White House and Senate, say Mayorkas’ failure to prevent record arrivals of migrants meets the constitutional bar for impeachment of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Democrats call the impeachment effort a vast, politically motivated overreach, characterizing Mayorkas as a committed government servant being used as a pawn in the 2024 presidential race.
To the surprise of many, the embattled secretary on Tuesday narrowly escaped impeachment by the House when three GOP lawmakers — including one from California — broke ranks with their party and joined all Democrats to vote no.
But House Republican leaders have vowed to try again, perhaps as soon as next week, even though the Democratic-controlled Senate is certain not to convict and remove him from office.
In his first extensive, sit-down interview since the vote, Mayorkas told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that he did not watch the impeachment proceedings. Instead, he was in a meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area discussing the agency’s prioritization of artificial intelligence. He broke away for a call and was informed the vote had failed.
Mayorkas, who insists he will not resign even if impeached, says he inherited a broken and outdated immigration system that can’t adequately respond to what has become a global migration crisis brought on by violence, poverty, authoritarian regimes and climate disasters.
He called the impeachment proceedings baseless, the accusations false and blamed Congress for failing to allocate enough funding to address the issue.
After devoting his life and career to public service and law enforcement, Mayorkas said the threat of impeachment, one of the rarest, most shameful rebukes a government official can face, is disappointing but has not shaken his commitment.
Respect for the law and service to democracy are themes that run deep in Mayorkas’ upbringing.
As a boy in Los Angeles, Mayorkas recalls his mother encouraging him to approach police officers in uniform, extend his hand and thank them. After escaping Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba, American police were, to her, a symbol of safety and the rule of law.
Mayorkas was born in Havana. His Jewish Cuban father owned a steel wool factory; his mother, a Jewish Romanian, narrowly survived the Holocaust when her family caught one of the last ships to Cuba.
In Beverly Hills — where his parents were drawn because of the education system — the family lived in a two-bedroom apartment before later moving to a modest home, where Mayorkas shared a bedroom with his two younger brothers. They attended a local synagogue twice a year for High Holy Days and frequented El Colmao, a Cuban restaurant in Pico Union.
Mayorkas attended Beverly Hills High School, UC Berkeley and Loyola Law School.
As a promising young federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Mayorkas pursued the death penalty against members of the Mexican Mafia, brought organized crime charges against a Los Angeles street gang and prosecuted Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss for tax fraud and money laundering.
Time in the courtroom, where he said defense attorneys lobbed heated verbal missiles at him, prepared him for what was to come.
“When I was in the courtroom, and the arrows are flying, what one is representing is the truth,” he said. “To have to fight to have that truth prevail is, I thought, what a privilege. And the arrows? Let the arrows come. We will deflect them, and break them.”
David Lash, then-chief executive officer of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm in Los Angeles, remembers consulting with Mayorkas on a series of fraud cases targeting elderly people. “Ali,” as Mayorkas is known to friends, was instrumental in the success of those cases, Lash said.
Lash and Mayorkas, who lived five blocks from each other, had children around the same ages. They became close friends, getting together for backyard barbecues over the years.
Mayorkas helped recruit Lash to the pro bono program at O’Melveny, the Los Angeles law firm Mayorkas joined after President Clinton left office in 2001.
Just walking to lunch might take 20 minutes, Lash recalled, because Mayorkas seemed to know every third person on the street, and would stop to shake their hands and ask how their families were doing.
“I think that comes from himself being an immigrant and working in the public interest,” Lash said. “It’s so important to him that he’s just imbued with this respect for people who are everyday folks working to make a life.”
President Obama appointed Mayorkas to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2009. There he led implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the program that offered work permits and deportation protections to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country as children.
He also led talks with the Cuban government on import security and travel as tensions between the U.S. and Cuba thawed. In 2015, he revisited his birth country for the first time.
The trip was personally difficult. His father had made the painful decision to leave Mayorkas’ grandmother, who was badly ill, when they fled Cuba and never got the chance to return. When Mayorkas visited his grandmother’s grave, it was in disrepair. He asked whether he could pay for landscaping at the cemetery but was refused permission, he said.
“It was a very difficult reminder of the loss and hardship of that exodus,” he said.
Four years later, Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate as deputy secretary of Homeland Security. He led the agency’s response to the Ebola and Zika virus epidemics, built up the agency’s cybersecurity capabilities and targeted drug cartels.
His tenure wasn’t without controversy. A 2015 DHS inspector general’s report accused Mayorkas of creating “an appearance of favoritism and special access” for politically connected businesses under a visa program that provided a path to citizenship for wealthy foreign investors.
Mayorkas returned to private practice during Trump’s administration as a partner at WilmerHale. But he appeared, to his friends, unsatisfied.
“He felt like there was unfinished business there, and that he could get the job done,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. He and Mayorkas have been friends since Mayorkas led the citizenship services agency.
Pasco said Mayorkas has a real reverence and affinity for law enforcement.
“His whole worldview, his whole approach to life was really imprinted on him in his early childhood and early adulthood,” Pasco said. “His family, particularly his mother, and his father, were very, very patriotic and raised him to be patriotic and appreciative of the things that the government did for them and the things that [it] protects them from.”
Mayorkas returned to the Homeland Security Department with Biden’s administration, faced with the challenge of undoing many of Trump’s policies, including travel bans for people from certain Muslim-majority countries, and with the aftermath of others, such as the separations of migrant children from their parents.
Mayorkas was faced with the unprecedented arrival of migrants at the southern border, not just from Central America but now also in greater numbers from places like China, India and Afghanistan. Republicans quickly put him, and his impeachment, in their sights after taking control of the House in 2023.
Rhetoric against Mayorkas has turned ugly at times. The morning of the impeachment vote, House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) behind closed doors called Mayorkas a “reptile with no balls” because he has refused to resign, according to Politico. Several House members, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey), quickly condemned the statement as antisemitic.
The attacks against Mayorkas have led even some conservatives to come to his defense.
Pasco’s organization, the Fraternal Order of Police, sent a letter to Congress just before the House vote Tuesday praising Mayorkas and the partnership between the DHS and local law enforcement to combat the fentanyl epidemic and violent crime. The FOP, the country’s largest police union, endorsed Trump in 2016 and 2020.
Trump’s impeachment lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, urged Republicans not to “apply a double standard” by impeaching Mayorkas.
In a letter to his colleagues Tuesday morning, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) said Mayorkas’ policies have damaged the country, but malpractice is not an impeachable crime. Homeland Security Committee members, he said, “stretch and distort the Constitution in order to hold the administration accountable for stretching and distorting the law.”
Three former Homeland Security secretaries, from Democratic and Republican administrations, said the impeachment jeopardized national security and undermined the department’s mission, including counterterrorism efforts.
And groups on the left, some of which have stridently criticized policies under Mayorkas, extended olive branches in support of the secretary, one of the highest ranking Latinos in government.
A coalition of 18 Latino-led civil rights and advocacy groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday calling the impeachment effort a sham.
“While not all his decisions have been met with unanimous approval, including from the signers below and other voices within our community, we strongly urge Congress to redirect their efforts to working in a bipartisan manner toward humane and effective immigration reform that helps move the American people forward,” the groups wrote.
At the same time the House was advancing impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas, the Senate released a bipartisan $118-billion border and foreign aid bill, supported by Biden and which Mayorkas consulted on.
“The irony is not lost on me,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who opposed the bill, in part because it failed to include a legalization component for immigrants including so-called Dreamers, as previous negotiations have. “Republicans can’t have it both ways,” he said.
Nonetheless, Padilla said running Homeland Security is one of the toughest jobs in America, made even tougher when Congress plays politics.
Republicans, he said, “can’t bring forward meaningful solutions — so they pivot to trying to scapegoat somebody through the impeachment process.”
Times staff writer Sarah D. Wire contributed to this report.
Politics
DOJ expands indictment against SPLC, alleging $4M secretly funneled to KKK and extremist groups
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The Department of Justice last month announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), alleging that the civil rights nonprofit defrauded donors by secretly paying informants associated with extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan.
A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment in April charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, according to the Justice Department.
The superseding indictment retains those charges while expanding on the alleged misconduct.
According to the DOJ, the SPLC “secretly funneled” more than $3 million in donor funds between 2014 and 2023 to numerous individuals associated with extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, the National Socialist Movement, participants in the Unite the Right rally and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.
NEO-NAZIS, ‘SADISTIC’ BIKERS AND CHARLOTTESVILLE ORGANIZER: 5 OF THE MOST SHOCKING SPLC INFORMANTS
The Southern Poverty Law Center has widespread influence in education. FILE: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, left, and SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair are shown in a split image as the Justice Department pursues charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images; USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images)
The original indictment alleged approximately $3 million in payments between 2014 and 2023.
“The SPLC’s paid informants (‘field sources’) engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website,” the indictment states.
Prosecutors further allege the SPLC opened bank accounts tied to fictitious entities in order to conceal donor funds that were allegedly routed to confidential sources.
MIKE DAVIS: SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER: A TALE OF A RACISM SCAM
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) building seen in March 2020 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)
According to the indictment, the SPLC began operating a covert informant network in the 1980s, and between 2014 and 2023 allegedly paid those sources in a clandestine manner.
The DOJ alleges an SPLC employee instead encouraged the pair to remain involved and offered them a monthly salary of $1,200.
The two subsequently agreed to remain in the organization, according to the indictment.
DR. BEN CARSON: I KNOW HOW BAD THE SPLC WAS, IT CAME AFTER ME AND PUT ME AT RISK
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel at the Department of Justice on April 21, 2026, in Washington, D.C., following the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Prosecutors allege an SPLC employee instructed the individuals to claim they worked for a company called Rare Books and helped college students with research and writing assignments if anyone questioned the source of their income.
The indictment alleges donor funds were used to pay both individuals through SPLC accounts.
According to prosecutors, the pair were also reimbursed for expenses related to Ku Klux Klan activities, including cross-burning events and associated costs such as wood and fuel.
One of the individuals is also accused of recruiting new members using donor-funded payments. The indictment further alleges the SPLC knew donor funds were used to purchase materials for Ku Klux Klan garments.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, attorney Abbe Lowell, who represents the SPLC, denied the allegations.
A composite image shows Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche overlaid on photographs of the Department of Justice and FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“This apparent superseding indictment attempts to shore up the flaws in the initial charges, but it changes nothing,” Lowell said.
“The SPLC did not lie to its donors, it did not mislead banks it did business with, and its informant program prevented violence and saved lives,” he continued.
“It appears the Justice Department shared the indictment with media before it was unsealed by the court – another example of the government’s troubling handling of this case.”
“We will be addressing these irregularities with the court and look forward to presenting the truth at trial,” he added.
NONPROFIT REVENUE TOTALS SURGE AMID GROWING SCRUTINY AFTER MAJOR FRAUD CASES
SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair speaks during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala., on March 5, 2026. (Jake Crandall/Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
The superseding indictment also notes that the SPLC’s reported revenue increased from roughly $38.7 million in 2010 to more than $129 million in 2023, an increase of approximately 233%.
According to the filing, the organization’s net assets grew from approximately $238 million to nearly $787 million during the same period.
The SPLC is a longtime nonprofit organization that says it combats white supremacy and extremism through research, reporting and monitoring efforts intended to assist law enforcement and the public.
During a news conference announcing the original indictment, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged the SPLC paid members of extremist groups so it could generate “work product” documenting their activities.
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“To that end, [SPLC] was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing – not dismantling extremism but funding it,” Blanche said.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch, David Spunt, Jake Gibson and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
Buoyed by a new Congressional map favoring their party, California Democrats were eyeing Tuesday’s primary elections as a critical first step toward flipping a handful of House seats and taking back power in Washington.
Results from California’s massive and slow-moving election process were not immediately clear late Tuesday, as polls closed and mail ballots continued to be processed and counted. Still, Democrats were bullish about their chances of advancing candidates to November’s general election in all five districts that were redrawn in their favor as a result of last year’s Proposition 50 ballot measure.
“The path to winning back the House starts with voting in the June 2nd primary,” the California Democratic Party posted online Monday.
Meanwhile, California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin urged Republican voters to make their own voices heard too.
“Like President Trump said, we need to make it too big to rig,” Rankin said on “The Benny Show.” “We need to swamp the vote.”
One of the most closely watched races was in the redrawn 22nd Congressional District in the Central Valley, where incumbent Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) is facing challenges from moderate Assemblymember Jasmeet Kaur Bains (D-Delano) and progressive college professor Randy Villegas.
Another closely watched race was in the redrawn 48th Congressional District in San Diego and Riverside counties, where Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) decided to retire rather than run for reelection, and where Republican San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond — who is endorsed by Trump — is running against a pack of Democrats.
Prop. 50 — which Californians passed with nearly 65% of the vote a year ago — was California Democrats’ response to Texas Republicans redrawing their state’s Congressional maps in the GOP’s favor, at President Trump’s behest. It was also the only major Democratic counterpunch in the wider mid-decade redistricting brawl that has spread across the country in the last year.
Experts expect the redistricting battle to deliver a net gain of a handful or more House seats to Republicans. But Democrats could gain even more ground given Trump’s lousy approval ratings and the long history of midterm election losses for the president’s party.
Combined, those factors make the battle for control of the House incredibly close, which in turn makes the five seats up for grabs in California pivotal — and potentially decisive.
Tuesday’s primaries won’t determine if any of those five seats will indeed flip parties in November. However, the primaries will define those head-to-head races to come and better inform the odds of Democrats toppling Republican incumbents, experts said.
In addition to flipping the seats currently held by Valadao and Issa, Democrats are hoping to pick up three additional seats.
In the 1st Congressional District — which after Prop. 50 lost rural reaches of northeast California and picked up liberal North Bay communities — various candidates were vying for the seat long held by the late Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale), who died in January. They include Democratic state Sen. Mike McGuire and Republican Assemblymember James Gallagher, who is endorsed by Trump.
Voters from the existing district are also voting in a special election Tuesday to fill the remainder of LaMalfa’s term.
In the 3rd Congressional District, which lost an eastern rural stretch along Nevada and now holds more tightly to the Sacramento suburbs, Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove) — who currently represents a different district — is running to remain in Congress in a new seat.
Meanwhile, the 3rd Congressional District’s incumbent, Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Rocklin), is seeking to do the opposite. He quit the Republican Party, became an independent and is now running for Bera’s current seat in Congressional District 6, which includes the city of Sacramento and Placer County suburbs.
In the 41st Congressional District, which became more liberal after Prop. 50 by losing voters in Riverside County and gaining them in Los Angeles County, a slate of candidates — including Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Whittier), who currently represents a different district — are running to replace Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona). Calvert, a 17-term incumbent, decided to run in the neighboring 40th Congressional District instead.
In the 40th Congressional District, which covers a swath of inland Orange County and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, incumbent Rep. Young Kim (R-Anaheim Hills) is now going head-to-head with Calvert, while also facing several Democratic challengers.
Other districts that were not part of the Prop. 50 shuffle are also attracting attention.
In the 11th Congressional District in San Francisco, several Democratic candidates are vying to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the retiring former House Speaker, including state Sen. Scott Wiener; tech millionaire and Democratic political operative Saikat Chakrabarti; and Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors who Pelosi endorsed.
Democrats are also closely watching several races where younger Democrats and progressives are challenging older incumbent Democrats, and where newer Democratic incumbents are seeking to hold onto their seats in relatively competitive districts.
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LOS ANGELES — Outside a Bristol Farms market in LA’s Westchester neighborhood, residents who spoke to Fox News Digital all agreed that homelessness is a top problem facing the city, but disagreed on which mayoral candidate is the right choice to clean it up.
“Love him,” Shelley Zuckerman said about reality television star and independent candidate Spencer Pratt, adding that homelessness is a main motivator of her support for the reality TV star’s mayoral run.
“The fact that he’s not a politician, so he may or may not be a liar, we don’t know that yet, and I know that he wants to do something for LA that the politicians have been saying they’re going to do and then don’t,” Zuckerman added. “And I know politics works, that once you get in there you can’t always do what you want to do, but at least he’s got the passion.”
SPENCER PRATT SAYS HIS POLICY WILL FORCE HOMELESS OUT OF LA AND INTO CITIES LIKE SEATTLE
Los Angeles residents say homelessness is the top problem facing the city as they head to the polls for the mayoral primary. (Fox News Digital)
When asked if crime was a motivating factor to vote for Pratt, Zuckerman’s husband Saul responded, “Of course.”
The couple says they are supporting Republican Steve Hilton for governor.
Patrick Reynolds, who lives in the neighborhood, said he is “not happy with any of the candidates” and called Pratt a “clown” before saying he voted for incumbent Mayor Karen Bass “a little reluctantly.”
Homelessness has been a top-of-mind concern for voters in Los Angeles, and despite Bass being mayor for the last four years, Reynolds said he believes she’s the best choice on that front.
Reynolds, who said he is supporting billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer for governor, spoke at length about the problems with homelessness, including a local park he said has become “too dangerous” to visit in recent years.
KAREN BASS GRILLED OVER BROKEN HOMELESSNESS PROMISE, BLAMES BUREAUCRACY FOR SLOWED PROGRESS
Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt hosts a campaign block party on 10th Avenue in Los Angeles on May 20, 2026. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“Homelessness for sure,” a woman named Diane, who said she voted for Bass, told Fox News Digital, “That’s number one on my list, and I think she’s tried very hard to fix that problem. It’s a big problem, I know. And I just think she is down to earth. She’s not some rich billionaire, which I appreciate.”
Diane said she is supporting former Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who served in the Biden administration, for governor because he is a “good guy.”
“I like that he is an immigrant and that he has worked his way up in this world,” Diane said. “I think he has a good sensibility. I like also that he isn’t a billionaire. I can relate to him.”
Dan Madden, a resident of nearby Manhattan Beach, told Fox News Digital that if he could vote in LA proper, he’d go with Pratt.
WHO IS TOM STEYER? ANTI-ICE BILLIONAIRE IN CA GOVERNOR’S RACE FACES SCRUTINY OVER DETENTION INVESTMENTS
A Los Angeles city councilwoman and progressive candidate for mayor Nithya Raman, left, pictured alongside incumbent mayor Karen Bass, right. (Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“That’d be my man,” said Madden, who added that he is voting for Hilton for governor. “The last 20 years in Los Angeles has been screwed.”
“It’s getting worse,” Madden said about the homeless situation in the Los Angeles area. “They cleaned up here and there. Spots, especially along the beach, coastline, you see it cleaned up. Two months later, everybody’s back.”
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Pratt, a registered Republican running as an independent, faces off in a nonpartisan mayoral primary against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a socialist.
Tuesday’s election will determine which two candidates advance to the November general election. If a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, they will automatically be named the next mayor.
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