Alejandro Mayorkas, an attorney by trade, has served as the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and is currently the Director of Homeland Security. Josh Hawley is a Senator from Missouri who is most well-known for his actions during January 6th.
Mayorkas has been a frequent target of Republicans looking to gin up anger over immigration. Hawley took it too far with Mayorkas today when he questioned him about an employee who was recently placed on administrative leave over a post concerning the Israel/Palestine conflict.
After Mayorkas refused to comment on the matter, calling it a personnel matter, the Senator raged, "Quite frankly, Mr. Secretary, I think that your performance is despicable and I think the fact that you’re not willing to provide answers to this committee is absolutely atrocious."
The Director of Homeland Security countered:
"Number one, what I found despicable was the implication that — this language, tremendously odious — actually could be emblematic of the sentiments of the 260,000 men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, number one.
Number two, Sen. Hawley takes an adversarial approach to me in this question, and perhaps he doesn’t know my own background. Perhaps he does not know that I’m a child of a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps he does not know that my mother lost all of her family at the hands of the Nazis. And so, I find his adversarial tone to be entirely misplaced. I find it to be disrespectful of me and my heritage. And I do not expect an apology, but I did want to say what I just articulated.'