Behind the scenes at DHS with Alejandro Mayorkas
b'When Alejandro Mayorkas was tapped to run DHS \\u2013 the now 20-year-old behemoth with 260,000 employees created in the aftermath of 9/11 \\u2013 Mayorkas said that he was determined to be the Secretary of Homeland Security, NOT the Secretary of Immigration.\\n\\nHow\\u2019s that going? Yesterday, Playbook co-author and Deep Dive host Ryan Lizza sat down with him on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum to find out.\\n\\nMayorkas\\u2019s department is charged with preventing foreign and domestic terrorist attacks. It monitors threats from weapons of mass destruction, protects infrastructure and ensures we\\u2019re safe from cyber attacks. \\n\\nWhat many of DHS\\u2019s agencies do have in common is that you often don\\u2019t hear much about them unless something really bad has happened.\\n\\nSo even if Mayorkas didn\\u2019t also oversee immigration, the most fraught of political issues, being DHS secretary \\u2013 responsible for defending the nation against terrorism, computer hackers, nuclear weapons, and natural disasters \\u2013 can often be a thankless job. \\n\\nAnd despite his best attempts, it is Mayorkas\\u2019s management of Border Patrol, ICE, and Immigration Services that has dominated his tenure and made him the GOP\\u2019s main target of attack in the Biden Cabinet. \\n\\nOn this episode of Deep Dive, Ryan and Sec. Mayorkas discuss how the terrorism threat has changed over the last two decades, the challenges of confronting domestic extremism, why the end of Title 42 didn\\u2019t lead to the border surge many predicted, the future of TSA, the fentanyl crisis, the prospects of impeachment, and how going through the meat grinder of D.C. politics has changed him.'