Biden’s DHS Candidate Flagged by 15 Whistleblowers for Preferential Treatment with Visas

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Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has been the subject of a complaint involving 15 whistleblowers that alleges Mayorkas showed preferential treatment when it came to administering EB-5 work-visa applications.

Mayorkas allegedly intervened to show special treatment to firms that “were prominent or politically connected” to high-ranking Democratic officials.

Allegations include:

  • “[P]ressured staff” to expedite the review of a Las Vegas casino investment at the urging of the then-top Democrat in the Senate Harry Reid.
  • Engaged in an “unprecedented” intervention to help a company chaired by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe
  • Instructed USCIS to reverse a decision to deny EB-5 funding for Sony movie projects in Los Angeles after hearing from Pennsylvania’s former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.

According to a 2015 DHS Inspector General’s report:

“Staff witnessed Mr. Mayorkas inserting himself in unprecedented ways into an adjudicative process governed by statute, regulation, and USCIS policy. As a result of his deviation from the normal process, applicants and stakeholders with whom he had just been in contact received a specific benefit.”

The report added that the interventions “lowered morale of those involved” inside the agency, and that the they significantly altered the outcome of the cases.

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