Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Our colleague David Rubinstein, Carlisle, co founder, host of Peer
Speaker 2: to Peer on Bloomberg Television, sitting down with Alejandro my orcis.
Speaker 2: As you can see right now on Bloomberg Television, let's
Speaker 2: watch and listen together of our.
Speaker 3: Homeland Security Advisory Council in the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 3: and the.
Speaker 1: Jewel thief that I am.
Speaker 3: I just stole Matthew Ferraro from the law from to
Speaker 3: join us and be a senior counselor on matters of technology.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, let me talk about the elephant in the room,
Speaker 4: because you were the second secretary in the history of
Speaker 4: our country to be impeached. What was it like living
Speaker 4: through that impeachment process and is it finally over now?
Speaker 3: To the best of my knowledge, it's over, so you know,
Speaker 3: quite frankly, I have said publicly a number of times
Speaker 3: that I did not allow it to distract me. That
Speaker 3: was actually sincere I focused intensely on my work throughout.
Speaker 3: In a week where it was an issue of greater
Speaker 3: prominence in the life of the department, I might have
Speaker 3: spent twenty minutes on it. I really just focused on
Speaker 3: my work. It had its impact on loved ones.
Speaker 4: So it's behind us now. Though, as Will Rogers once said,
Speaker 4: and paraphrasing him, the country is never safe as long
Speaker 4: as the house is in session, right, So you never know,
Speaker 4: but may never come back, right.
Speaker 1: One would hope not.
Speaker 4: Okay, So let's talk about the border. It appears that
Speaker 4: there are a lot of people coming in over the border.
Speaker 4: This is obviously one of the subjects of that people
Speaker 4: wanted to impeach you. Some people wanted to them peach
Speaker 4: you over. Is it really that we're getting more people
Speaker 4: coming in over the border illegally or is it just
Speaker 4: the appearance of that?
Speaker 3: Oh no, No, The number of encounters at the southern
Speaker 3: border is very high, but it's very very important number
Speaker 3: one to contextualize it and number two to explain it
Speaker 3: from a context perspective. The world is seeing the greatest
Speaker 3: level of displacement since at least World War Two. I
Speaker 3: think the recent report was that there are seventy three
Speaker 3: million displaced people in the United States. And so the
Speaker 3: challenge of migration is not exclusive to the southern border,
Speaker 3: nor to the western hemisphere.
Speaker 1: It is global.
Speaker 3: And when I speak to partners across the Atlantic. It's
Speaker 3: the first issue that they raise, The first challenge that
Speaker 3: what is the reason for that? So well? One has
Speaker 3: the customary reasons of displacement, violence insecurity, poverty, corruption, authoritarian regimes,
Speaker 3: now increasingly extreme weather events that propel people to leave.
Speaker 1: Why are we experiencing what we are?
Speaker 3: It is for those very reasons why people leave their
Speaker 3: countries of origin. We also remember, in our hemisphere we
Speaker 3: overcame COVID more rapidly than any other country. We had,
Speaker 3: in a post COVID world, eleven million jobs to fill.
Speaker 3: We are a country of choice as a destination. And
Speaker 3: one takes those two forces, and then one considers the
Speaker 3: fact that we have an immigration system that is broken
Speaker 3: fundamentally and we have a level of encounter that we do.
Speaker 3: And when we speak of a broken system, let me
Speaker 3: just capture that as succinctly as I can. The average
Speaker 3: time between encounter and the point of final adjudication of
Speaker 3: an asylum claim is seven plus years. Approximately seventy percent
Speaker 3: of the people who meet an initial threshold for asylum
Speaker 3: the credible fear standard about seventy qualify and so they
Speaker 3: stay for seven plus years and the ultimate adjudication about
Speaker 3: twenty percent qualify. That's quite a disparity. But people in
Speaker 3: the meantime leave that are able to stay sometimes have children.
Speaker 3: US citizen children attend our schools, attend our places of worship,
Speaker 3: but integrate in the community.
Speaker 4: I understand, But why wouldn't somebody who coming in illegally
Speaker 4: always say they're seeking political asylum because based on what
Speaker 4: you just said, they're likely to be here for seven years.
Speaker 4: Why not just say I'm not smuggling drugs, I'm just
Speaker 4: a political asylum seeker. Why doesn't anybody do that.
Speaker 3: The drug Let's separate drug smuggling from migration, David, The
Speaker 3: fact of the matter is that we have an extraordinary
Speaker 3: number of people aiming asylum and a greatly reduced number
Speaker 3: of people qualifying for it. The reality is that people
Speaker 3: do claim asylum when in fact they are fleeing poverty,
Speaker 3: generalize violence, and that does not an asylum case make.
Speaker 3: But the initial threshold for an asylum case is low,
Speaker 3: and purposely low. And one of the things that the
Speaker 3: bipartisan legislation would have done is would have raised the
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 4: So in our country, if somebody seeks political asylum and
Speaker 4: they legitimately need political asylum, is it our law that
Speaker 4: they automatically get it if they have legitimate means. There's
Speaker 4: no quotas or anything on how many people we can
Speaker 4: accept for a political asylum.
Speaker 3: There is no quota on the asylum population, and one
Speaker 3: just has to persuade a judge.
Speaker 4: So you've been Homeland Security secretary under President Biden from
Speaker 4: the beginning administration. So how many people would you say
Speaker 4: since that time have come over the border, the southern border,
Speaker 4: let's say, illegally seeking asylum. They're bringing drugs or whatever
Speaker 4: they're doing.
Speaker 3: I do want to differentiate because we're in a political
Speaker 3: environment that demonizes individuals encountered at the border, and there's
Speaker 3: a vulnerability to painting with a broad brush people who
Speaker 3: are fleeing in coming to the United States. And so
Speaker 3: I want to separate and I will be incessant in
Speaker 3: this separate rug smugglers from individuals seeking asylum or even
Speaker 3: if they don't have a basis to remain in the
Speaker 3: United States.
Speaker 1: Seeking a better life.
Speaker 3: And so the number of encounters have been very well
Speaker 3: published this past year. This past month, we had about
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty four thousand encounters in.
Speaker 4: This past month, say, since the beginning of the administration.
Speaker 4: Is it millions of people? It's several million people. The
Speaker 4: perception is by I guess some Republicans in the House
Speaker 4: side perhaps maybe others, that more people have been coming
Speaker 4: in under President Biden than under President Trump. Is that
Speaker 4: true or not?
Speaker 1: That is that is true? Now?
Speaker 3: Twenty nineteen, there was almost a one hundred percent increase
Speaker 3: in the number of encounters of the Southern border over
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. The situation in the Hemisphere was propelling people
Speaker 3: to leave their country. Twenty twenty was a period of
Speaker 3: tremendously suppressed migration throughout the Hemisphere and around the world
Speaker 3: because of the COVID nineteen.
Speaker 4: People coming over the border illegally in the Southern Border,
Speaker 4: what percentage of them are really drug smugglers?
Speaker 3: The majority of fentyl over ninety percent of the fentinyls
Speaker 3: smuggled into this entry is smuggled in passenger vehicles and
Speaker 3: commercial trucks traveling through are ports of entry.
Speaker 4: So it's not people carrying it on their body.
Speaker 1: It is not people carrying it on their body.
Speaker 4: What about people who are hired who want to get
Speaker 4: a better life. They hire people for money to get
Speaker 4: them across the border. Is that a big problem as well?
Speaker 3: So let me let me go back and make one
Speaker 3: other point about the ports of entry. The majority of
Speaker 3: people arrested seeking to smuggle fentanyl into the country through
Speaker 3: commercial trucks and passenger vehicles are United States citizens?
Speaker 4: What do with them?
Speaker 3: So they're arrested for drug smuggling and under Title twenty
Speaker 3: one of the United States Code, they're prosecuted. So with
Speaker 3: respect to your question about, you know, people coming across
Speaker 3: the border, what we need, What we need fundamental mentally
Speaker 3: is a reformed system, a legislatively reformed system.
Speaker 1: We are in twenty twenty four. The world has changed.
Speaker 3: Our immigration system was last changed in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: We're in a different world now.
Speaker 4: Well, there was legislation that was developed, i think in
Speaker 4: the Senate, bipartisan legislation, and it got stalled. Let's say,
Speaker 4: in the House. Would that have solved our problem?
Speaker 3: Had it passed, it would have been a transformative change
Speaker 3: in managing the number of people we encounter.
Speaker 4: What was the main thing that would have been in
Speaker 4: that law that we don't have now that you would
Speaker 4: have liked to have.
Speaker 3: So we would have taken a seven plus year time
Speaker 3: period between the time of encounter and final adjudication and
Speaker 3: reduced it to as little as ninety days. And that
Speaker 3: changes an intending migrants risk calculus, because if they know
Speaker 3: that they can stay from multiple years and work and
Speaker 3: make more money than they can and safely so than
Speaker 3: in their country of origin, they will decide to make
Speaker 3: that journey. If they understand that they have to pay
Speaker 3: their life savings to a smuggling organization only to stay
Speaker 3: for a matter of weeks, that is a very different
Speaker 3: risk calculus. And one of your prior questions was do
Speaker 3: they pay people to assist them? The world of migration
Speaker 3: has changed dramatically over the last even fifteen years. We're
Speaker 3: not dealing with the coyotes that I dealt with as
Speaker 3: a federal prosecutor, that where they smuggle two three people
Speaker 3: at a time. We're dealing with extraordinarily sophisticated smuggling organizations
Speaker 3: in a multi billion dollar industry that is also international.
Speaker 4: But that industry is it one design to bring drugs
Speaker 4: into the United States or designed to get people to
Speaker 4: come United States for which they get a fee.
Speaker 1: It is the latter.
Speaker 3: But what we are seeing, and it should be unsurprising
Speaker 3: to everyone that we're seeing a.
Speaker 1: Not quite a merger, I would say.
Speaker 3: A synthesis of transnational criminal organizations and the smuggling organizations.
Speaker 1: There's so much money to be made.
Speaker 4: And fentanel is coming from China. Is that true?
Speaker 3: Well, China is a primary source of precursor chemicals and
Speaker 3: the equipment used to manufacture fednyls.
Speaker 4: How does it get over from China to let's say Mexico.
Speaker 3: It is shipped to Mexico, and it also comes domestically
Speaker 3: to the United States and follows various transit routes. And
Speaker 3: which is why I engaged with my counterpart from the
Speaker 3: People's Republic of China to address this fact.
Speaker 4: The people who are now coming over? Are we separating families?
Speaker 4: Other words, under the Trump administration, there was a lot
Speaker 4: of controversy children being separated from parents. Is that happening
Speaker 4: now or not happening?
Speaker 3: No, that was a deliberate practice to deter families from
Speaker 3: reaching the southern border. Was the separation of them That
Speaker 3: was condemned across the board. Cruelty is not something that
Speaker 3: is an instrument of a value based country, and we
Speaker 3: eliminated that practice. I actually was eliminated in all fairness.
Speaker 3: Towards the end of the Trump administration, we issued a
Speaker 3: policy preventing it, and we actually the president created a
Speaker 3: Family Reunification Task Force that I chair that is actually
Speaker 3: reuniting separated families.
Speaker 4: Okay, so President Trump a campaign when he first campaigned
Speaker 4: for president on creating a wall, and I guess some
Speaker 4: part of the wall was built. But would not a
Speaker 4: wall have helped somewhat if we had a big wall?
Speaker 4: Would that not block people from coming even though people
Speaker 4: like to make fun of the wall and expensive, would
Speaker 4: not have had some impact and reducing illegal immigration.
Speaker 3: So look, in the twenty first century, I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 3: propose cementing ballards on the ground and constructing an immovable
Speaker 3: wall given the dynamism and the rapid change in migratory patterns.
Speaker 3: But I just have to quote Secretary of Politano. You
Speaker 3: build a twenty foot wall, they'll build a twenty one
Speaker 3: foot ladder. And we see breaches of the wall all
Speaker 3: the time. We're seeing the corrosion and collapse of the
Speaker 3: wall in other places. But people breach physical barriers. It
Speaker 3: requires a much more comprehensive approach.
Speaker 4: So why wouldn't people come over the northern border where
Speaker 4: somehow come out. Nobody seems to be monitoring the Canadian
Speaker 4: border that much, I guess, So isn't easier to come
Speaker 4: into the country illegally through Canada?
Speaker 3: And we monitor the northern border of the United States
Speaker 3: US customs and border protection. Some of the terrain is
Speaker 3: very difficult to traverse. We have a different legal structure
Speaker 3: with Canada. We have a Safe third Country agreement with
Speaker 3: Canada and the reality and Canada also has different approaches
Speaker 3: to migration into their country. Then do some of the
Speaker 3: countries in Latin America.
Speaker 4: If you wanted to come into this country illegally. Let's
Speaker 4: suppose you were you want to come in.
Speaker 1: Let's say if one wanted to come in.
Speaker 4: One wanted to what would you recommend to that one
Speaker 4: person that they do about the best way to get
Speaker 4: into this country illegally?
Speaker 1: I would.
Speaker 3: I would caution them and encourage them to apply for
Speaker 3: a visa, and if in fact they seek humanitarian relief,
Speaker 3: to actually avail them themselves of the lawful pathways that
Speaker 3: we have established so that they don't risk their lives
Speaker 3: in the hands of smugglers.
Speaker 4: All right, what percentage of people die trying to get
Speaker 4: into this country, they're shot by somebody or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know, David, a percentage, but I will share
Speaker 3: with you having spoken to families who cross the Dairy
Speaker 3: enn the area between Colombia and Panama, the suffering and
Speaker 3: the trauma is extraordinary.
Speaker 4: So what is the country that is sending the most
Speaker 4: people illegally over the southern border? Is it Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela.
Speaker 4: Where are they mostly coming from?
Speaker 1: It varies, It varies from time to time.
Speaker 3: I would just say that the population right now, demographically,
Speaker 3: the population of individuals whom we are encountering at the
Speaker 3: southern border in between the ports of entry predominantly right
Speaker 3: now Mexican, Mexican.
Speaker 4: Okay, So let's oppose the legislation that didn't pass. Maybe
Speaker 4: eventually it'll pass, But until then, can you not administratively
Speaker 4: do things that was in the legislation or are you
Speaker 4: already doing that?
Speaker 3: The legislation did a number of things. The two pillars
Speaker 3: were It gave us the legal tools, statutorial statutory tools
Speaker 3: to vastly accelerate the adjudication of claims for humanitarian relief,
Speaker 3: and that means we could remove people more quickly who
Speaker 3: do not qualify and quite frankly, we could give protection
Speaker 3: with finality to people who do much more rapidly, and
Speaker 3: it resourced us. It resourced us to effect that dramatic change.
Speaker 3: We were talking about alatiece of legislation that would equip
Speaker 3: us with four thousand, three hundred more asylum officers, more
Speaker 3: immigration judges, just plus up the entire system in a
Speaker 3: way that we now just don't have.
Speaker 4: Okay, let me ask you a few other questions related
Speaker 4: to this. So right now, the homeland Department of Homeland
Speaker 4: Security was created after nine to eleven? Do you feel
Speaker 4: we are much safer today than we were before nine
Speaker 4: to eleven because of the Department? I do much more
Speaker 4: and much at a nine to eleven event occur again,
Speaker 4: or you.
Speaker 3: Know, it is our job and not just the Department
Speaker 3: of Homeland Security, but the federal government, in partnership with
Speaker 3: state and local, tribal, territorial law enforcement and the American citizenry,
Speaker 3: to be vigilant because the threat landscape, as direct array
Speaker 3: of the FBI is accurately communicated publicly.
Speaker 1: We're in a heightened threat environment.
Speaker 4: So a number of people I think from Homeland Security
Speaker 4: and or the CIA or NSA have gone to Capitol
Speaker 4: Hill and said that TikTok is a danger to our
Speaker 4: nation security. But the public hasn't been given that much
Speaker 4: detailed information about what the threat is. How much of
Speaker 4: a threat to our nation security is TikTok.
Speaker 1: The People's Republic of China.
Speaker 3: Acts adversely to the interests of the United States in
Speaker 3: different ways. One of those ways is through the dissemination
Speaker 3: of disinformation, the intentional communication of false statements, and TikTok
Speaker 3: is an extraordinary avenue through which to disseminate disinformation to
Speaker 3: millions and millions of people.
Speaker 4: But newspapers can disseminate this information. Why is it If
Speaker 4: it's over social media, it's got to be banned. If
Speaker 4: a newspaper says the kind of same things that is
Speaker 4: over TikTok wouldn't be banned because of the First Amendment.
Speaker 4: Why is the First Amendment not protecting the TikTok social
Speaker 4: media devices?
Speaker 3: Well, it's not to me an issue of the First Amendment.
Speaker 3: It's an issue of security. As we are talking about
Speaker 3: a company and an algorithm that is controlled by a
Speaker 3: foreign state that acts adversely to the interests of the
Speaker 3: United States, and we have an obligation.
Speaker 1: To protect Americans.
Speaker 4: But the presumption is that people aren't smart enough to
Speaker 4: know that it's disinformation and they can't make the decision
Speaker 4: for themselves. Is that right?
Speaker 3: Well, we're talking about many, many young people that access TikTok.
Speaker 3: I would posit that in this country we don't have
Speaker 3: the level of digital literacy that I think we.
Speaker 1: Would all want.
Speaker 3: We're all vulnerable to disinformation, and the reality is is
Speaker 3: that we have an obligation to safeguard against it. We're
Speaker 3: talking about the intentional dissemination of false information.
Speaker 4: Okay, I should disclose that my firm is an investor
Speaker 4: in White Dance, so I'm not personally an investor, but
Speaker 4: my firm did invest in it. So let me go
Speaker 4: on to another subject then, Okay, so what is you know?
Speaker 1: My answers would have stayed the same had I known
Speaker 1: that at the outset.
Speaker 4: Okay, I didn't think you were going to change. But
Speaker 4: do you have children who ever watch TikTok or you
Speaker 4: tell them not to do that?
Speaker 3: You know the one maxim from law school that I
Speaker 3: remember very clearly. I don't think our older daughter it
Speaker 3: looks at TikTok, our younger daughter does.
Speaker 1: The law abhors a useless act. That is a maxim I.
Speaker 3: Remember, And so if I admonished our nineteen year old
Speaker 3: daughter to not access TikTok, I'm not sure I would succeed.
Speaker 4: Okay, do you ever watch TikTok yourself?
Speaker 3: She is a digitally no, she is a digitally literate
Speaker 3: consumer of information.
Speaker 4: What is the biggest security threat to the United States
Speaker 4: right now in your view?
Speaker 3: So I would in the terrorism context, I would say
Speaker 3: the threat of foreign terrorism has re emerged with a
Speaker 3: greater level of significance, and the threat of domestic violent
Speaker 3: extremists individuals or loose affiliations of individuals who are radicalized
Speaker 3: to violence because of ideologies of hate which are only increasing,
Speaker 3: especially after the October seventh terrorist attacks against Israel, of
Speaker 3: anti government sentiments, false narratives, other narratives propagated on.
Speaker 4: But you feel better about our homeland security today than
Speaker 4: you did ten years ago or twenty years ago, you think,
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 3: I think the Department and the Homeland Security Prize writ
Speaker 3: large has matured and advanced tremendously.
Speaker 4: And today who are the best at cyber terrorism? Is
Speaker 4: it China? North Korea? Who do you think has the
Speaker 4: greatest capabilities of doing damage to our country. In terms
Speaker 4: of foreign countries through cyber.
Speaker 3: I would say there are four China, Russia, Iran, and
Speaker 3: North Korea, okay.
Speaker 4: And in our country you can go if you're really
Speaker 4: good at cyber or something like that, you can go
Speaker 4: work for a venture firm, make lots of money and
Speaker 4: so forth. If you go work in the US government,
Speaker 4: you're not going to get paid as much. So is
Speaker 4: the US government able to get really top flight cyber
Speaker 4: people who can compete with the people from overseas, or
Speaker 4: do we not have the best people in our government
Speaker 4: working on these problems because we can't pay them enough.
Speaker 3: We have the best people in the government, and there
Speaker 3: are the best people in the private sector as well.
Speaker 3: You raise an issue where we had a debate internally
Speaker 3: to draw to attract the best cyber talent, should we
Speaker 3: increase the salaries of those individuals to be able to
Speaker 3: better compete. We of course cannot close the divide, but
Speaker 3: we could shrink it and come out. And so I
Speaker 3: lost this debate because we did increase the salaries. And
Speaker 3: my position is very difficult for me to stand in
Speaker 3: front of a group of border patrol agents that risk
Speaker 3: their lives every day, risk their lives every day and
Speaker 3: say I've got to pay cyber talent. I got to
Speaker 3: kick up their salary a little bit to come to
Speaker 3: work for the United States of America.
Speaker 1: Because I will tell you.
Speaker 3: The compensation in public service is different than a material compensation.
Speaker 3: So there are your sense of fulfillment, and there is
Speaker 3: a commitment to service. And if one does not feel
Speaker 3: that that is enough, then then one should choose otherwise.
Speaker 1: So I disagreed with the plus.
Speaker 4: Up but didn't get done.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it got done.
Speaker 4: It got done. So now we're paying people five percent more.
Speaker 1: We're paying people a little bit more. And we look
Speaker 1: in AI talent.
Speaker 3: Okay, we have an AI recruiting effort underway, and I've
Speaker 3: hit the road in recruiting. Uh you know data scientists
Speaker 3: and the like. And I don't talk to them about
Speaker 3: the salary. I talk to them about what it means.
Speaker 4: Well, are you using AI now already to kind of help?
Speaker 1: We are, We are, and our department is leading in
Speaker 1: the use.
Speaker 4: And you give us any examples without violating now security
Speaker 4: about how AI is helping.
Speaker 3: So let me let me let me share with you
Speaker 3: one example of how it has demonstrated its capacity for
Speaker 3: good as well as otherwise. And then I'll share with
Speaker 3: you a couple pilots that we have going on. We
Speaker 3: fight online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Eighty million images disseminated.
Speaker 1: Worldwide last year.
Speaker 3: I don't think people understand the extent of the problem.
Speaker 3: We used AI to take a photograph of a young
Speaker 3: girl who disappeared at the age of about seven, and
Speaker 3: we used AI to extrapolate what that young girl would
Speaker 3: look like now ten years later.
Speaker 1: Ten years later.
Speaker 3: Our ability to make that extrapolation using AI was so
Speaker 3: effective that our law enforcement officers were able to identify
Speaker 3: that seventeen year old, find her and rescue her.
Speaker 1: Remarkable off let me flip, Let me flip it.
Speaker 3: We then see AI being used to generate an image
Speaker 3: of a child that doesn't exist, or a child that
Speaker 3: does exist, and depict that child real or artificial, depict
Speaker 3: that child being sexually exploited, and it causes our law
Speaker 3: enforcement officers to devote resources on a decoy or errant mission.
Speaker 3: And so it's potential for good and it's potential for
Speaker 3: harm or real.
Speaker 4: Oh, can you tell what I'll look like in five
Speaker 4: or ten years?
Speaker 1: You will not have changed one bit.
Speaker 4: Really wow, I like that artificial intelligence. So let's talk
Speaker 4: about your background. You don't come to the cabinet with
Speaker 4: this conventional background of many people who have this position.
Speaker 4: So where were you born?
Speaker 1: I was born in Havana, Cuba.
Speaker 4: Really and what age did you lead?
Speaker 3: My parents brought my sister and me here to the
Speaker 3: United States as political refugees when I was about one.
Speaker 4: And did they come in I legally or illegally?
Speaker 1: They came in illegally. My father.
Speaker 3: Was a bit prescient. Although we didn't leave early, but
Speaker 3: we left early enough.
Speaker 4: So there isn't that big a Cuban or wasn't that
Speaker 4: big a Cuban Jewish community. But your mother and father
Speaker 4: were both Jewish. Her father was Sephardic, yes, and his
Speaker 4: ancestors came from.
Speaker 1: His father was from Turkey, his mother from Poland.
Speaker 4: And your mother was Ashkenazi Jewish.
Speaker 3: My mother fled Romania to France, France to Cuba late.
Speaker 3: Her father lost eight brothers and other family in the
Speaker 3: concentration camps. They left so late they couldn't get to
Speaker 3: his and our policies at that time were not as
Speaker 3: welcoming as one would have hoped. At a time of
Speaker 3: great human distress.
Speaker 4: Okay, So they came to the United States legally? Where
Speaker 4: did they come?
Speaker 3: So we arrived in Miami and we lived in Miami
Speaker 3: until my father found a better work opportunity in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 4: You were growing up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I grew up for most in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4: And you speak Spanish fluently.
Speaker 3: I speak at my grammar is not something that I
Speaker 3: take great pride in.
Speaker 4: Okay, So where did you go to high school?
Speaker 1: I went to Beverly Hills High School.
Speaker 4: Beverly Hills High School with a lot of movie stars
Speaker 4: kids and things like that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting that you would you consider Jack
Speaker 3: Abramoff a movie star. I don't remember any movie stars.
Speaker 3: You know, when you hear probably when everyone hears Beverly
Speaker 3: Hills High School, they think.
Speaker 1: You know the Clampett family.
Speaker 3: There were four elementary schools that fed into the high school.
Speaker 3: Two were tended to be of a more affluent community,
Speaker 3: and the other two were quite frankly modest. I grew
Speaker 3: up in a lower middle class the middle class home,
Speaker 3: never wanting for anything, an incredibly close family.
Speaker 4: You have siblings.
Speaker 3: I have three siblings and they're all alive. They're all
Speaker 3: alive in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 4: And are they interested in homeland security or not so much?
Speaker 1: They are probably recent devotees.
Speaker 4: So where did you go to Where did you go
Speaker 4: to college?
Speaker 1: I went to University of California at Berkeley.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's a pretty good school. So how did you
Speaker 4: do there?
Speaker 1: I did pretty well?
Speaker 4: And did you say I want to be a Homeland
Speaker 4: security secretary someday?
Speaker 3: I don't think I've had that level of hubris any
Speaker 3: time in my life.
Speaker 4: Okay, So you graduate mayor Then you went to law
Speaker 4: school in Los ange Loyal Law School. Loyola is a
Speaker 4: Catholic school. You're a Jewish, so they have a lot
Speaker 4: of people are Jewish there. I presume right, it was
Speaker 4: a mixed student body. Okay, all right, So you graduated
Speaker 4: from law school and what did you do?
Speaker 3: I went into a law firm. I wanted to go
Speaker 3: into public service. This country has given my family everything,
Speaker 3: and I very much wanted to give back. I wanted
Speaker 3: to go into public service, and I had my eyes
Speaker 3: on the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. They
Speaker 3: required three years of experience, and so I gained three
Speaker 3: years of experience in a private law firm and then
Speaker 3: went into the US Attorney's office.
Speaker 4: Okay, and you were a litigator.
Speaker 3: I was a federal prosecutor in the practice litigator.
Speaker 4: So you went in as a federal prosecutor, and you
Speaker 4: were an assistant US attorney in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: For eight and a half years, specializing in sophisticated fraud cases.
Speaker 4: Did any of your people ever get off when you
Speaker 4: took on the trial or they were convicted?
Speaker 1: Everybody? One individual?
Speaker 3: We ended up resolving the case after a adverse verdict
Speaker 3: in a case that was quasi criminal. One doesn't suffer
Speaker 3: an adverse verdict and get a chance to retry a
Speaker 3: case in a criminal obviously double jeopardy. But this was
Speaker 3: a quasi forfeiture case. In the first trial, the jury
Speaker 3: voted to for the defendant. The judge actually issued a verdict,
Speaker 3: not a ruling. Notwithstanding the verdict, felt that the jury
Speaker 3: had aired gravely.
Speaker 1: We took it to trial again.
Speaker 4: Okay, and so pretty well, so you became the US attorney.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let me let me share something with you.
Speaker 3: When I became the US attorney at the age of
Speaker 3: thirty eight, Yes, yeah, I think I might have been
Speaker 3: ultimately confirmed at thirty nine. But when I was the
Speaker 3: U S Attorney, I communicated to all of the supervisors
Speaker 3: in law enforcement that during my tenure the acquittal rate
Speaker 3: would go up. And I received a standing ovation, And
Speaker 3: I'll share with you why. And Jamie knows this as
Speaker 3: the former Deputy Attorney General. Law enforcement will never take
Speaker 3: issue with an adverse verdict if one took a tough
Speaker 3: case to trial and one worked one hundred percent and
Speaker 3: invested everything one could in reaching a just outcome. But
Speaker 3: what law enforcement will criticize is the prosecutor who's hesitant
Speaker 3: to take a tough case to trial even though it's
Speaker 3: the it's a just and righteous case. And sometimes you
Speaker 3: take tough cases and the jury does the right thing.
Speaker 3: And sometimes you know, they say when the play is
Speaker 3: cast in Hell, the actors aren't angels. We have tough witnesses.
Speaker 3: Some they come with their own baggage. I could tell
Speaker 3: a story that will make everybody in this room quake
Speaker 3: about an acquittal. You know, we had it one case
Speaker 3: where the defendant won. Two defendants won, the United States
Speaker 3: Marshals and the guards in the detention center, the warden
Speaker 3: and the United States Marshal during trial communicated to me
Speaker 3: a deep concern if this individual was not convicted, because
Speaker 3: the guards and the marshals who have seen everything, said
Speaker 3: that they around this individual. They felt they were around
Speaker 3: what the warden said is Lucifer. There was something about
Speaker 3: this individual. That case rested on a very difficult witness
Speaker 3: who was a drug user and the like, and the
Speaker 3: jury just couldn't do it, and they just felt they
Speaker 3: couldn't rely on this one witness, not exclusively, but predominantly
Speaker 3: in finding beyond a simple doubt. And that individual who
Speaker 3: was accused of stealing drugs from drug dealers and gratuitously
Speaker 3: setting one of them on fire to their death and
Speaker 3: chopping the other one up gratuitously, that individual acquitted law enforcement.
Speaker 3: We took it to trial. I wasn't a trial er,
Speaker 3: but we took it to trial. I was on that
Speaker 3: case intensely. They they thanked us for doing everything that
Speaker 3: we could, just as that investigator had done everything he could.
Speaker 4: But the person got off. The person got off, And
Speaker 4: what happened to the person don't know, don't maybe ran
Speaker 4: for Congress or something. No, no, so, did you ever
Speaker 4: convict anybody that you thought shouldn't have been conded, Oh
Speaker 4: my gosh, absolutely not everybody you put it never.
Speaker 1: Never.
Speaker 3: This is a matter of ethics, kays, a matter of integrity.
Speaker 3: Never can one have a sentilla of doubt with respect
Speaker 3: to the guilt of the individual whites process.
Speaker 4: Right, so us attorney and then you finished that and
Speaker 4: you go back to the practice of law. Yes, it
Speaker 4: went to O'Melveny, o'melvinie and Myers in Los Angeles. Right,
Speaker 4: So you got involved in the Did you get involved
Speaker 4: in the campaign when Barack Obama was running for president?
Speaker 4: Were you involved in his campaign anyway? I was okay.
Speaker 4: So you ultimately get involved in the transition with Barack Obama, yep.
Speaker 3: I led the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice transition.
Speaker 4: To and you took a position in the Obama administration.
Speaker 4: Initially what was your position?
Speaker 3: The position was the Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services,
Speaker 3: an agency within the department that administers the legal legal
Speaker 3: immigration site. Right.
Speaker 4: And then after that you got promoted to be the
Speaker 4: Deputy Homeland Security Secretary under Janet Napolitano. Yes, okay, And
Speaker 4: so that didn't convince you that this is a complicated
Speaker 4: area and you shouldn't want to come back as secretary,
Speaker 4: or that.
Speaker 3: I am complicated, difficult, challenging, and extraordinarily full fright.
Speaker 4: So you go back after the President Obama Leave's office,
Speaker 4: you go back, you join help Wilma Hill Hail, and
Speaker 4: you're in what's city in here in Washington? Okay, so
Speaker 4: you're a partner there. How did you get connected to
Speaker 4: the Biden administration? Did they remember you from the Obama
Speaker 4: administration or they did They just called you up and said,
Speaker 4: guess what, we liked you as deputy, Now you can
Speaker 4: be the secretary.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was in that way, but I was.
Speaker 3: Extraordinarily proud to be contacted by the incoming president, the
Speaker 3: president elect, to be considered.
Speaker 4: And did your family say we're making a lot of
Speaker 4: money here your way up here in compensation and you're
Speaker 4: going to go down here again? And that was a factor. No,
Speaker 4: you didn't care, Okay, didn't he wouldn't be. It is
Speaker 4: what it is, what it is, Okay, all right? So
Speaker 4: what was your confirmation like? Was that unanimous or.
Speaker 1: Oh? I wouldn't say it was unanimous.
Speaker 3: I will tell you that I was confirmed unanimously twice
Speaker 3: until I touched immigration. I was confirmed unanimously to be
Speaker 3: the Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and after
Speaker 3: that I did not enjoy too easy confirmation proceedings. My
Speaker 3: confirmation as as Secretary was along party lines, and when
Speaker 3: you do that when you're not entirely There were a
Speaker 3: few Republicans in the United States Senate who voted to
Speaker 3: confirm me, well predominantly.
Speaker 4: It kind of confirmation you have to pay yourself for
Speaker 4: the legal services or getting confirmed, if you have to
Speaker 4: pay accounting fees or how do you get confirmed without
Speaker 4: having to spend a lot of money on legal or
Speaker 4: accounting things to fill out forms.
Speaker 1: I filling them out oneself.
Speaker 4: Oh, okay, save money that way, Okay, I didn't spend
Speaker 4: any money, all right. So let's talk about the Department
Speaker 4: of Homeland Security. How many people work at the Department
Speaker 4: of Homeland Security.
Speaker 3: About two hundred and sixty thousand. Where are they third
Speaker 3: largest department in the federal government.
Speaker 4: And are they working remotely?
Speaker 3: Both some remote and some in person and our frontline
Speaker 3: personnel don't have the option of working remotely.
Speaker 4: What are the main parts of it? I know you
Speaker 4: have certain parts that were put together out of Treasury
Speaker 4: Department other things. What are your main divisions?
Speaker 3: I don't think people really understand the expanse of our
Speaker 3: remit of our mission in the immigration area and in
Speaker 3: others US Customs and Border Protection. Why do I say others,
Speaker 3: Trade and travel, TSA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Citizenship
Speaker 3: and Immigration Services, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency FEMA, United
Speaker 3: States Secret Service? Those are seven United States Coastguard the eighth.
Speaker 3: The expanse of our portfolio is extraordinary, from online child
Speaker 3: sexual exploitation and abuse, crimes of exploitation, human trafficking, to
Speaker 3: facilitating lawful trade and travel, to search and rescue and
Speaker 3: security in the Arctic and the Indo Pacific, to addressing
Speaker 3: the flooding yesterday and today in Houston, Texas, where we
Speaker 3: have a number of fatalities, and the frequency and gravity
Speaker 3: of extreme weather events is only growing, the cyber attacks
Speaker 3: from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 4: You ever get a weekend off, you don't have to
Speaker 4: worry about some crisis somewhere.
Speaker 1: I take My goal is to take half a Saturday.
Speaker 4: Half a Saturday? Okay? And how do you stay in shape?
Speaker 4: Are you an exerciser or a warrior?
Speaker 1: That's a.
Speaker 3: You know, let me tell you if worry sheds weight,
Speaker 3: I just appear.
Speaker 4: I work out and so can you go to a
Speaker 4: restaurant and knocks off, and you go to Washington a
Speaker 4: restaurant in Washington without people giving you tips or something
Speaker 4: about some homeland security violation somewhere?
Speaker 3: Do you mean they give and I walk into a
Speaker 3: restaurant without someone commending us for the extraordinary work we do?
Speaker 4: Does that happen a lot?
Speaker 3: Keep keeping the American people safe and secure. I am
Speaker 3: approached from time to time and other times not.
Speaker 4: What's the biggest complaint you get about TSA agents?
Speaker 1: Let me let me let me say this.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago, ten years ago, the concern was am
Speaker 3: I going to ten plus years ago? Am I going
Speaker 3: to board my flight and reach my destination safely? That
Speaker 3: was the concern. Am I going to reach my destination safely?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: The concern is how fascile will my travel experience be?
Speaker 1: How long will I need to wait in line? We
Speaker 1: have moved a lot.
Speaker 4: But sometimes people get through the TSA system. They get
Speaker 4: on the plane and they're drunk, or they hit a
Speaker 4: flight attendant, and then I never read about their going
Speaker 4: to jail. They just seem to kind of go away
Speaker 4: what are you been doing about that?
Speaker 1: David? I share your perspective.
Speaker 3: I remember as an assistant United States attorney, anyone messed
Speaker 3: around in a plane up in the air, they were
Speaker 3: prosecuted was a federal defense.
Speaker 1: The level of disruption.
Speaker 3: In a post COVID world is unprecedented in scope and scale,
Speaker 3: and I actually believe that the enforcement regime is not
Speaker 3: active enough.
Speaker 4: Okay, So you share my view, I do. Okay, So
Speaker 4: if you're if you if President Biden is re elected,
Speaker 4: would you continue to serve in this position?
Speaker 3: I will tell you that I believe in the president,
Speaker 3: and I believe in his prerogative to decide who his cabinet.
Speaker 4: All right, if the members are the president is not
Speaker 4: re elected, and your best friend and your worst enemy
Speaker 4: approached you and they said they were offered the job,
Speaker 4: who would you recommend take it? Your best friend or
Speaker 4: your worst enemy?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? My I don't have enemies.
Speaker 3: I would absolutely ask my best friend to take the job.
Speaker 3: And if I had an enemy, I would consider them unqualified.
Speaker 4: Okay, because of your enemy?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Okay, So today people are worried about the immigrants coming
Speaker 4: in illegally, But how many illegal immigrants do you think
Speaker 4: we have in the country now, and once somebody is
Speaker 4: in the country illegally, what percentage actually ever get sent out.
Speaker 1: So we have.
Speaker 3: Thus far this fiscal year removed or returned more individuals
Speaker 3: than any administration I think for at least ten years.
Speaker 3: So we're removing and returning more people than any administration,
Speaker 3: including the immediately preceding administration. When we took office, I
Speaker 3: believe the accounting was approximately eleven point four million undocumented
Speaker 3: people in the United States.
Speaker 1: We don't have an.
Speaker 3: Update to that number now, but it's been millions and
Speaker 3: millions because our system has been broken for decades.
Speaker 4: Now, do you are you a responsible for overseeing domestic
Speaker 4: terrorism too or dealing with that?
Speaker 1: We deal with the domestic.
Speaker 3: Violent extremism, which is the form of domestic terrorism that
Speaker 3: we're most focused on.
Speaker 1: We deal with it. We deal with it.
Speaker 3: With our partners across the federal enterprise, the FBI intensely.
Speaker 4: So on the Secret Service. Recently, I think candidate running
Speaker 4: for president, Robert Kennedy's father was assassinated. They didn't have
Speaker 4: Secret Service protection. Then he has asked for Secret Service protection,
Speaker 4: hasn't received that. Who makes a decisional who gets Secret
Speaker 4: Service protection? When you're running for president, I do.
Speaker 3: And what we do is we have set up a process.
Speaker 3: We have a defined criteria and the process. The process
Speaker 3: provides for a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to make
Speaker 3: recommendations to me after they have analyzed the factors that
Speaker 3: we have established. This is a protocol that was established
Speaker 3: prior to the Trump administration, and so we resuscitated it.
Speaker 3: It is a political it is bipartisan, and the factors
Speaker 3: are apolitical. And I have followed in each each instance
Speaker 3: the recommendation of the bipartisan group. There has been no
Speaker 3: light between or amongst us.
Speaker 4: Well, when I worked in the White House one hundred
Speaker 4: years ago or so, it was a president and the
Speaker 4: vice president got secrets arty protection.
Speaker 1: As they do now.
Speaker 4: But it seems as if a lot of White House
Speaker 4: aids and other people have secret chartst protection. It seems
Speaker 4: like it's proliferated. I mean, how do you decide who
Speaker 4: gets it, if you're a White House aid or not.
Speaker 3: It is based on a threat assessment, and very sadly,
Speaker 3: the threat environment in which we are living is more
Speaker 3: acute than it was when you had the privilege, when
Speaker 3: you had the privilege of serving. Look we are now
Speaker 3: in a world where a former government official, not of
Speaker 3: course the former president, but a former government official is
Speaker 3: receiving protection because of the threat landscape.
Speaker 4: What about baseball owners that they need secret ary protection?
Speaker 4: Ever thought about that?
Speaker 3: You know, if I recall my reading of the standings
Speaker 3: circa this morning, you are safe and secure since you're
Speaker 3: resting in first place.
Speaker 4: Yes, I hope so. But what happens to go south?
Speaker 4: We'll see, Okay, So.
Speaker 3: We'll talk again, either before or after we talk about
Speaker 3: TikTok okay.
Speaker 4: So on the whole people who are watching that, you
Speaker 4: would like to say to them that they are safer
Speaker 4: today in the United States than they were ten or
Speaker 4: twenty or thirty years ago, but we still have big risks.
Speaker 3: I would say the following. I would say, we are
Speaker 3: safer today than we were yesterday. The threat landscape is
Speaker 3: heightened and everyone needs to be vigilant because what we
Speaker 3: have observed. If one takes a look at the domestic
Speaker 3: violence that has occurred, whether it is the tragic shooting
Speaker 3: in Buffalo, New York, in the supermarket, whether it is
Speaker 3: the July fourth parade in a suburb of Chicago, whether
Speaker 3: it is Uvaldi Texas. What we have learned is that
Speaker 3: the individuals, the assailants were exhibiting signs of radicalization to
Speaker 3: violence before they committed their heinous acts. And what we
Speaker 3: see something say something campaign that Secretary of Nepolitano developed. Really,
Speaker 3: I think to the general public speaks of the abandoned
Speaker 3: backpack at a bus stop or in the airport, it
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily speak to the individual who is exhibiting signs
Speaker 3: that should cause us all to worry. And so the
Speaker 3: question is, and what we are building is an architecture
Speaker 3: where people understand what the ndisha are and know that
Speaker 3: what help they can call, because it's not to call
Speaker 3: the accountability regime, law enforcement because nothing has occurred yet,
Speaker 3: but to call a trusted source, whether it is a teacher,
Speaker 3: a faith leader, a mental health practitioner, to say, look,
Speaker 3: this individual is coming to school in a hazmat suit,
Speaker 3: or this individual has withdrawn from all social interaction and
Speaker 3: is communicating messages that speak of an interest in committing
Speaker 3: a violent act.
Speaker 1: Who do I call?
Speaker 3: What outreach do I make to prevent something from materializing?
Speaker 4: Sometimes when you see people who do these mass shootings,
Speaker 4: they go into their social media and they say Oh,
Speaker 4: they said some crazy things two days ago or so forth.
Speaker 4: But you don't have the resource or capability to look
Speaker 4: at all crazy things on social media to figure out
Speaker 4: who's my going to do something crazy? Right?
Speaker 1: That is correct?
Speaker 3: But if they are publishing that in a so that
Speaker 3: others can see it, what do others do? And that's
Speaker 3: the muscle that we need to build in this country,
Speaker 3: how to come to help someone and prevent something from happening.
Speaker 3: So I would say we're safer. The threat landscape is
Speaker 3: heightened and everyone needs to be vigilant. Homeland security is
Speaker 3: an all in proposition.
Speaker 4: I suppose a member of Congress calls you and says,
Speaker 4: I have a security problem in my district and I'd
Speaker 4: like you to look into it. And there's a challenge.
Speaker 4: This person voted to impeach you. What would be your reaction.
Speaker 3: The political position of an individual is irrelevant to a security.
Speaker 4: Analysis, so it doesn't affect you.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not in the least.
Speaker 4: You don't remember the names and people that voted against you.
Speaker 1: I guess right, I don't have that good a memory.
Speaker 3: Let me be clearer that I have some very productive
Speaker 3: relationships and good relationships with some of the people who
Speaker 3: voted to impeach me.
Speaker 4: But you don't vote it against them.
Speaker 3: You know what I don't. I'm not a person that
Speaker 3: holds things against people. I live my life to the
Speaker 3: best of my abilities in a way that would make
Speaker 3: me my parents another's proud. And then others are going
Speaker 3: to live their lives and make their decisions.
Speaker 4: Now, the first Homeland Security secretary was a big burly man,
Speaker 4: former governor of Pennsylvania. You're not a great man. You're
Speaker 4: not a big burly man. So you're shorter, I've noticed
Speaker 4: than me. Even so, when people see you and they
Speaker 4: be very interested to see where this is going. So
Speaker 4: when people meet you for the first time and they say,
Speaker 4: I thought I was going to be big. He's in
Speaker 4: charge of Homeland Security, but he's diminutive. Is that No,
Speaker 4: that's not about a problem.
Speaker 1: Not for me.
Speaker 3: But let me, let me, let me so I have
Speaker 3: to share a story with you. But before I do,
Speaker 3: let me you mentioned Secretary Ridge, a great, a great American.
Speaker 3: When his portrait was unveiled at the then headquarters, he said,
Speaker 3: this is very very typical of Washington. First they paint
Speaker 3: you in a corner, then they frame you. Then they
Speaker 3: hang you out to dry. So I was as a
Speaker 3: new assistant United States Attorney. I was dealing with a
Speaker 3: defense lawyer and he had not met me, and he
Speaker 3: apparently gathered from my voice that I was tall and big,
Speaker 3: and so when he first met me in court at
Speaker 3: a status hearing, he actually thought I was an impostor.
Speaker 3: He did not believe I was who I was. But
Speaker 3: then when the judge called the case, he realized I
Speaker 3: actually was Alejandro Majorcis. He literally did not think I
Speaker 3: was who I presented myself to be. The judge had
Speaker 3: not met me before. The defense lawyer was about six
Speaker 3: foot five and I am almost the inverse little taller
Speaker 3: than that. And the judge looked at me and looked
Speaker 3: at him and said, you know, Majorcus, you should be
Speaker 3: really happy we don't settle this case the old fashioned way.
Speaker 4: So to be very serious, I really want to thank
Speaker 4: you for your service to the country in many different positions.
Speaker 4: I would not be as magnanimous as you. If people
Speaker 4: were voting to impeach me, I probably would have their
Speaker 4: names memorized. But thank you for what you've done for
Speaker 4: the country, and thanks for being a very good sport today. Okay,
Speaker 4: thank you for having me. Thank you, Thank you, David.
Speaker 4: Thank gift. I have a gift for you. Okay. That
Speaker 4: was Bloomberg Television's peer to peer host David Rubinstein sitting
Speaker 4: down at the Economic Club of Washington with Homeland Security
Speaker 4: Secretary Alejandro majorc Is for a wide, raging conversation