Ezra Klein interviews Alejandro Mayorkas — a lengthy discussion of measures the Biden administration has taken in the past 12 or so months, which have brought down by (per Mayorkas) Mexican border encounters by 50%. He discusses in some detail these measures, comments on how smuggling became a big business, confirms the crucial role of long delays in immigration court in driving border encounters, and defends the bipartisan bill of early 2024 killed by Trump.  The picture he paints is incomplete, and suffers from the absence of any coherent presentation by Biden or Harris on immigration in whole or in part.

Go here for my posting of my more comprehensive assessment of how encounters at the Mexican border have been affected.

Alejandro Mayorkas was born in 1959 in Havana, Cuba. After the Cuban Revolution his family fled to the United States. He has a BA from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from Loyola Marymount University.  Mayorkas was appointed by President Obama as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Between 2016 and 2021 he practiced law in the private sector. On February 2, 2021, Mayorkas was confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security by the Senate on a 56–43 vote. On February 13, 2024, the House impeached Mayorkas 214-213. The Senate voted 51–49 to dismiss the impeachment charges on April 17, ending the impeachment, without trial