DHS Sec. Mayorkas Calls for Legislation to Grant Separated Families Legal Status

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas condemned the Trump administration for not maintaining adequate records of children separated from their parents during its zero-tolerance immigration policy.

“It’s a marriage of cruelty and shambles of organizational work,” Mayorkas told 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. “I don’t know how to put it more bluntly than that.”

In 2018, a federal judge ordered the government to stop the separation policy and reunite the families within 30 days. As 60 Minutes reported on this week, that process is still ongoing.

In February, President Joe Biden created an interagency family reunification task force that is overseen by Mayorkas and run by Michelle Brané, the former director of the Migrant Rights and Justice team at the Woman’s Refugee Commission.

Learn more about Brané’s transition from WRC to the Biden administration.