The DHS head says immigration, artificial intelligence, China and climate change are top priorities for the 20-year-old department.
Alejandro Mayorcas, director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, explained the agency’s vision and how it will address “evolved” threats as the agency enters its 30th year.
Immigration, artificial intelligence, China, climate change and domestic extremism are among the biggest threats facing the United States going forward, Mayorkas said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, absorbing a range of areas into its mandate, including “counter-terrorism,” immigration, and disaster response.
It faces regular controversy, such as requiring “special registration” for Muslim men from certain countries in the early 2000s and more recently monitoring Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. increase.
Still, Majorcas sought to portray a sector that is changing “as the homeland security threat environment evolves from a predominantly focused counterterrorism posture to a landscape of complex and diverse challenges.”
He spoke the day after the Department of Homeland Security released its latest review of U.S. Homeland Security, which is conducted every four years as a requirement of Congress.
The key points are:
transfer
- The model of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is to “build legal pathways that give individuals the opportunity to reach the United States safely in an orderly manner to take advantage of the humanitarian relief that our law provides.” , is to have consequences for them, those who do not take advantage of those legitimate avenues,” Myorkas said.
- He appeared to be referring to the Biden administration’s recent policy of allowing the United States to admit up to 30,000 people a month from Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela if they pass certain immigration checks. Human rights groups say the policy violates U.S. law by refusing people to apply for asylum at the border.
- Mayorcas also said the Biden administration “will make a decision soon” on whether to reinstate the controversial practice of illegally detaining families crossing the border.
- As rights groups have argued, Mayorcas denied that the Biden administration’s approach “increases the risk” of those seeking to take a more dangerous route across the border.
artificial intelligence
- Countering threats in cyberspace remains one of the department’s most important missions, but Mayorkas focused on the possibilities and threats of artificial intelligence.
- He also announced that he is leading the creation of the Department of Defense’s first AI task force. The task force will “advance specific applications of AI to advance critical homeland security missions.”
- Examples listed include using AI to enhance supply chain integrity, screen shipments of products made by forced labor, and ship fentanyl and chemicals used to make drugs around the world. It includes detecting in
- The ministry said it will ensure that the use of AI is “rigorously tested to avoid bias and can be clearly explained to those we serve.”
China
- Majorcas identified four “hostile states” — China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea — as focused on targeting the United States, but emphasized Beijing specifically, saying that Beijing ” It poses a particularly grave threat to the mainland, and it does.” Get in touch with all the missions of our department. ”
- These threats include China’s regional “aggressive presence”, destructive cyberattacks, and “interfering with or degrading the delivery of critical national functions, sowing discord and panic, Beijing’s “supported strike” designed to prevent the mobilization of military force.
- Mayorkas said, “A 90-day sprint across the sector to assess how the threat posed by China is evolving and how we can best be positioned to prevent future manifestations of this threat. ,” he said.
Domestic extremism, drug trafficking, climate change
- Majorcas said, “Small groups of solitary criminals and individuals motivated by a wide range of grievances and violent extremist ideologies, from white supremacy to anti-Semitism to anti-government stances, are among the most persistent in the United States. It poses a deadly terrorist-related threat.”
- Fentanyl trafficking has become a “scourge,” with 46,802 overdoses dying in 2018. 57,834 deaths in 2020. 71,238 in 2021.
- The impacts of climate change are “intensifying,” resulting in longer wildfire seasons, more frequent hurricanes and tornadoes, and increased migration globally.
Responding to the Republican Barb
- Mallorcas also noted Friday’s intense interrogation at congressional hearings earlier in the week.
- In one exchange, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green called Majorcas a “liar” after accusing it of failing to make efforts to combat cross-border fentanyl trafficking. The Republican chairman ruled that Greene’s comments violated House rules and prevented her from speaking further at the hearing.
- On Friday, Mayorcas said of the comments: ”
