2023 Year in Review: Secretary Mayorkas Champions Department-Wide Efforts to Save Lives and Prepare for 21st Century Security Challenges | Homeland Security
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2023 Year in Review: Secretary Mayorkas Champions Department-Wide Efforts to Save Lives and Prepare for 21st Century Security Challenges

Release Date: January 9, 2024

DHS priorities to include efforts to harness artificial intelligence technology, mitigate cybersecurity threats, and combat targeted violence and terrorism  

WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reflect on the progress made in 2023 to improve cohesion, transparency, and innovation in the work of preventing, preparing for, and responding to the many and varied threats facing the homeland in 2023. The United States faced a range of challenges last year, including damaging natural disasters, strategic competition and aggression from nation-states, historic growth in global migration, the growing sophistication of transnational organized crime, large scale cyber intrusions, and an increased threat of targeted violence — all of which are expected to continue or intensify in the coming years. DHS’s significant investments in its workforce, innovation, and partnerships throughout 2023 have laid the groundwork for taking on these challenges of the decades ahead.  

“Our communities are safer and more resilient, our economy is more secure, and our government is more prepared thanks to the unprecedented work of the DHS workforce,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “From managing a historic level of global migration, to helping secure travel for a record number of Americans, rescuing children from online sexual exploitation, and leading operations that kept fentanyl off our streets, DHS took dramatic steps this past year to enhance the security and readiness of our nation. That progress will continue into 2024 as we enhance collaboration with our partners in and outside of government and utilize new strategies, including responsibly harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence, to strengthen our nation’s safety, security, and resilience.” 

In 2023, the DHS workforce: 

  • Enhanced the speed and efficiency of vetting and processing noncitizens seeking to enter the United States with the same level of security and integrity of our processing and without additional resources from Congress. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was able to process four-to-five times as many individuals at select ports of entry in 2023 than we could a decade ago.  

  • Seized over 43,000 pounds of fentanyl in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 and 5,500 pounds in the first two months of FY 2024, enough to kill every American 33 times over. DHS stopped more fentanyl and arrested more drug traffickers in the last two years than the previous five years combined. 

  • Helped to identify or rescue over 1,170 child victims of online sexual exploitation or abuse. 

  • Responded to 25 natural disasters that have individually each accounted for over a billion dollars in damage, the most billion-dollar disasters in FEMA’s (Federal Emergency Management Agency) history.  

  • Ensured the safety and security of nearly 850 million travelers amid a record-setting year of air travel and prevented more than 6,500 firearms from entering the secure areas of airports and onboard aircraft, more than any previous year.  

In his first State of Homeland Security address delivered at the Council on Foreign Relations in April 2023, Secretary Mayorkas spoke of emerging homeland security challenges:   

“Revolutionizing technological innovations, growing political and economic instability, widening wealth inequality, a rapidly changing climate, increasingly aggressive nation states, emerging infectious diseases, and other forces are transforming the global landscape, challenging and sometimes rendering moot a nation’s borders, and bringing national and international threats to any community’s doorstep.”  

In 2023, the Department took steps to address these challenges, including enhancing efforts to prevent terrorism and targeted violence, preparing for new security challenges presented by emerging technologies like AI, and helping communities build resiliency to prepare for natural disasters and cybersecurity incidents. DHS led whole-of-government efforts to combat fentanyl. DHS also took steps to modernize the application and enforcement of our immigration laws. All the while, the Department invested in its dedicated workforce to ensure they have the tools they need to deliver on our critical mission. 

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Last Updated: 01/20/2025
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