Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has ordered a “90-day sprint” review of six areas where the U.S. is vulnerable to China, including fentanyl smuggling, Chinese control of the supply chain and preventing China from exploiting the immigration system to insert its operatives into the U.S.
Mr. Mayorkas announced the moves in a State of the Homeland address Friday, sounding new alarms about the threat China poses.
“Beijing has the capability and the intent to undermine our interests at home and abroad and is leveraging every instrument of its national power to do so,” he said in his prepared remarks. “We must ensure we are poised to guard against this threat today and into the future.”
His speech came a day after he delivered Homeland Security’s latest quadrennial review to Congress, with a document laying out the direction the department will go over the next four years.
Joining China as a major new focus is artificial intelligence.
Mr. Mayorkas said he has ordered a new task force to harness AI’s power in defense of the U.S., and in particular to turn it loose on some of the China problems such as stopping the flow of fentanyl, or on finding victims of online child sexual exploitation.
He said the task force will also assess how AI might affect the security of America’s critical infrastructure.
He promised safeguards such as preventing “bias and disparate impact” in what the AI produces.
The quadrennial review and Mr. Mayorkas’ speech raise big questions about where the U.S. might be vulnerable to China.
China’s role in producing the chemicals used to create fentanyl, the deadly opioid, has long been known. Stopping the drugs, however, has proved tricky.
Less known is China’s exploitation of the immigration system to insert operatives who will do Beijing’s bidding, either in stealing U.S. intellectual property to send back home or carrying out the Chinese government’s invasive surveillance and pressure tactics on government targets abroad.
Mr. Mayorkas, in his remarks Friday, said the 90-day assessment will get a handle on how widespread that is.
Federal prosecutors this week announced charges against individuals they say operated what amounted to a Chinese police station in New York, surveilling targets and otherwise doing the bidding of the Beijing government.
The Trump administration didn’t produce a quadrennial review for the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Mayorkas’ version elevates issues the Biden administration has been talking about, such as violent domestic extremism.
It also enshrines the Biden administration’s diversity and equity agenda as an official department goal, saying it’s particularly critical in cybersecurity recruiting efforts.
“We are placing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility at the center of our efforts because this is a challenge that affects all of us and we need every perspective at the table,” the review said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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