
Alejandro Mayorkas, Avril Haines to be nominated by President- elect Joe Biden
President- elect Joe Biden plans to nominate Alejandro N. Mayorkas to run homeland security and Avril Danica Haines as the intelligence chief, as per reports in the New York Times. If so, Mayorkas will be the first Latino to run Homeland Security and Haines will be the first female intelligence chief.
Alejandro N. Mayorkas, 62, is a Cuban-American lawyer who served as the Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2016. After this, he joined the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr as a partner and practices in the areas of civil and criminal litigation, internal investigations, cybersecurity, crisis management and strategic counseling. In 2008, The National Law Journal named Mayorkas as one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.”
Avril Danica Haines, 51, is an American lawyer and former government official who served as the White House Deputy National Security Advisor in Barack Obama’s administration. She previously served as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the first woman to hold this position. She has also served as Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs in the Office of White House Counsel.
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