Politico is trying to protect President Joe Biden’s border chief Alejandro Mayorkas — and his Wall Street backers — from blame for President Donald Trump’s triumph over the Democrat Party in 2024.
Politico interviewed migration zealot Alejandro Mayorkas on May 12 and suggested that Mayorkas’s policy failures were caused by infighting in Biden’s mismanaged White House:
It seems to me … that you became really the most prominent political punching bag for a White House that did not have a coherent immigration policy, and a president who could not make up his mind about what he wanted to do about border control. I wonder how does that thesis strike you?
Mayorkas accepted Politico’s excuse, saying, “I found myself to be quite resilient,” and adding:
It was also my responsibility as a member of the cabinet to execute the orders of the Chief Executive of this country. Whether I agreed or disagreed with those orders, I made my positions known, and then when decisions were made, I executed. That’s my responsibility as a member of the cabinet.
Politico’s cover-up is important because Mayorkas’s political allies — chiefly the FWD.us lobby for West Coast investors — are still pushing Democrats to maximize migration. For example, FWD.us and like-minded lobbies are backing the “cheap labor” migration bill that is being fronted by Rep. Marie Salazar (R-FL) and the business-backed Problem Solvers Caucus.
But there is abundant evidence that Mayorkas is a progressive who ideologically welcomed the Biden-era migration, even as Biden urged his deputies to curb the unpopular inflow.
Mayorkas also has repeatedly said that he wanted to help the “Bidenomics” economic stimulus policy by importing millions of migrants to serve as apartment-sharing renters, taxpayer-funded consumers, and low-wage workers.
Mayorkas’s vast wave of migrants, however, proved politically disastrous because it flatlined Americans’ wages, spiked their rents, escalated crime, slowed productivity gains, raised inflation, and garishly spotlighted elite contempt for public opinion, safety, and national security.
Since the defeat, Biden’s many pro-migration deputies have shielded themselves by avoiding hard-nosed questions from mainstream reporters. For example, in March 2025, Mayorkas blamed “communication and narration” and GOP governors for the defeat.
But in December 2024, Mayorkas admitted the mass migration was a choice when he was asked by CBS News in December 2024: “Why wait until five months before the U.S. election to put in place those asylum restrictions that did cut off the [migrant] flow? That ended the crisis!”
Mayoras responded to CBS:
Looking back now in hindsight, in 2020 if we had known that irresponsible politics [populist GOP voters] would have killed what was clearly a meritorious effort and a meritorious result [the 2024 pro-migration border bill], perhaps we would have taken executive action more rapidly.
But the Politico interviewer offered Mayorkas more opportunities to shift the blame to Biden, and away from the elite-funded migration lobby: “Do you feel that you had the support from the President in order to succeed?”
Mayorkas accepted the implied pardon, but did not blame Biden:
There were areas of disagreement within immigration policy and in other areas, but I voiced my views. I was very pleased that in June of 2024, we took executive action that I thought made reforms that were sensible and proved successful.
Politico tried again, asking, “If those executive actions had been taken one or two years earlier, do you think Donald Trump would be the president today?”
“I am not in a position to speculate, but I will tell you that I would be far better rested and less punched,” Mayorkas responded.
Mayorkas then openly described his PR policy for upping migration amid vast public opposition:
Our tougher border stance in June of 2024, with an increased focus on providing lawful pathways for people [emphasis added] to arrive at the United States outside the hands of smugglers — more secure and more humanitarian. … Our [border] numbers dropped 70-75 percent in June.
Politico ignored the massive implications of Mayorkas’ “lawful pathways for people” PR pitch.
Many Democrats, including media-declared “moderates” like Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), are already backing variants of Mayorkas’s PR strategy to justify the additional migration sought by donors.
But numerous polls show that most Americans are increasingly aware that both illegal and legal migration divert vast wealth to Wall Street — and also deliver crime, poverty, and chaotic diversity to Main Street.
Trump’s GOP has a different message: “Globalization’s hunger for cheap labor is a problem precisely because it’s been bad for innovation,” Vice President JD Vance told a March 2025 audience of investors, adding:
Real innovation makes us more productive, but it also, I think, dignifies our workers. It boosts our standard of living. It strengthens our workforce and the relative value of its labor.
“The evidence that I see is that if we really lean into robotics and technology, it’s going to raise everybody’s wages and make everybody better off,” Vance told Fox News in November 2025, just three years before the 2028 election.