California candidate Becerra receives no high marks from Mayorkas
Alejandro Mayorkas, former Homeland Security Secretary, said he would not endorse Xavier Becerra in Becerra’s California governor bid, noting he is “agnostic” and that, as his residence is in Washington, D.C., he doesn’t want to weigh in on California politics. Mayorkas also argued it isn’t fair to judge the competency of another Cabinet secretary “over the fence,” especially given how complex the job is.
During a Politico event, Alex Burns pressed him about Becerra’s role overseeing HHS during the Biden administration, when hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children entered federal custody and were later placed with adult sponsors. Burns pointed to an HHS Inspector General audit (from February 2024) citing issues such as delayed well-being follow-up calls, missing documentation of safety checks, and cases where children were released before background checks were fully completed.
The article notes California’s governor race is large and highly contested, with many Democratic and Republican candidates, and that polling averages put Becerra fourth going into the June 5 jungle primary.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declined to endorse fellow Biden administration Cabinet official Xavier Becerra in the latter’s bid for California governor.
Mayorkas was asked in a rare public appearance at a Politico event in Washington on Tuesday if he would support the former health and human services secretary and California attorney general in his gubernatorial bid.
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“I am agnostic with respect to the California gubernatorial race,” Mayorkas told Alex Burns, Politico‘s senior executive editor of North America. “Right now, my residence is in Washington, D.C., so you will not find me to answer your political questions in a satisfactory way. I should say there are many qualified individuals in the California race.”
Burns asked if Becerra bore responsibility for losing contact with tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children who came over the southern border and were placed with often unrelated adult sponsors across the United States by HHS during the Biden administration.
🚨 NEW — Alejandro Mayorkas declines to endorse fellow Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra in California governor’s race
Transcript below
POLITICO: Your former cabinet colleague, Xavier Becerra, is running for Governor of California. Do you support him in that race?
MAYORKAS:… pic.twitter.com/6h3eFzgli0
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) May 12, 2026
“Look, I think it’s very difficult for me to judge the competency or performance of another Cabinet secretary because one has to be in that position, understand the opportunities for success, the challenges that one confronts, and I don’t think it’s fair for me to judge over the fence,” Mayorkas said.
Burns pushed back on Mayorkas.
“I’ll just say, if one of my colleagues at work was asked, ‘How do you think Alex is doing?’ and they said, ‘Well, it’s a very complicated job, and I don’t really think I’m,’ I think I might notice that it wasn’t exactly a full-throated endorsement of my performance,” Burns said.
“Well, that’s your comment, not mine,” Mayorkas said.
More than 500,000 unaccompanied children came over the border during the Biden administration, and it was HHS’s job to take care of them in federal custody before placing them with a sponsor to live with in the U.S.
A February 2024 audit by the HHS Office of Inspector General found that the agency failed to conduct timely well-being follow-up calls for 22% of children placed with sponsors, 16% of case files lacked proof that sponsors underwent safety checks, and 19% of children were released to adults before the FBI fingerprint and state child abuse registries shared results with the government about the sponsors.
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The California gubernatorial race is very crowded, with 20 Democratic candidates and 12 Republicans headed into the jungle primary election on June 5.
A RealClearPolitics polling average of two surveys conducted in mid-April through early May found Becerra ranked fourth in an open primary.
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