NEW: Trump Puts Alejandro Mayorkas In His Crosshairs, Floats Potential Prosecution

President Donald Trump is calling for the Department of Justice to potentially prosecute former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his role in what Trump described as an intentional act of national sabotage through the facilitation of illegal immigration.

The bombshell comments came Tuesday after Trump’s tour of a new high-security migrant detention facility deep in the Florida Everglades—nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.” The president didn’t mince words when asked by a supporter why no one from the Biden-era DHS had been arrested.

“Why hasn’t he been arrested yet?” a reporter asked. “Obviously you guys are cleaning up the mess that was made deliberately for the past four years… I guess I would ask you, why hasn’t he been held accountable or anybody?”

“Well, you know, pardons were given out to many people and they shouldn’t have been given out. Like the unselect committee of political thugs was given a pardon because they destroyed all of the information from two years of hearings and they should be arrested but they were given pardons,” Trump said.

“If he wasn’t given a pardon, I could see looking at that,” Trump continued.

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Mayorkas was indeed impeached by the House in early 2024 on charges of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” in regard to immigration enforcement. The Senate, however, dismissed the charges months later.

But Trump isn’t letting it go. He argued that even if Mayorkas was simply following orders from the Biden administration, that does not absolve him of responsibility.

“He was really doing the orders. And you could say he was very loyal to them because it must have been very hard for him to stand up and sit up and talk about what he allowed to happen to this country and be serious about it,” Trump said. “So he was given orders… but that doesn’t necessarily hold him harmless.”

The former secretary has long been in the crosshairs of conservatives over the record-breaking influx of illegal immigration during the Biden presidency. Trump’s remarks suggest he is now seriously considering legal consequences for what he sees as deliberate dereliction of duty—potentially testing the limits of post-administration accountability.

When Mayorkas took office in February 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recorded over 10 million encounters with removable noncitizens, including more than 1.5 million known “gotaways” who evaded capture. Fiscal year 2022 alone saw a record 2.2 million encounters at the border, sparking accusations that the administration lost operational control of immigration enforcement.

A major point of contention has been the dismantling of Trump-era policies like the “Remain in Mexico” program, which required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims were processed. The Biden administration ended the policy without providing a suitable replacement, prompting a surge of illegal crossings.

Even after being forced to reinstate the policy temporarily due to court orders, many viewed the response as too little, too late. The absence of strong deterrents during Biden’s first two years in office is widely cited as a major factor behind the crisis.

The backdrop for Trump’s fiery comments—“Alligator Alcatraz”—was no accident. The remote site, surrounded by Everglades wildlife and largely inaccessible terrain, has been touted by the White House as a symbol of renewed strength on border security. With miles of swamp between the facility and the nearest town, administration officials have pointed to the setting as a feature, not a bug.