Mayorkas Secretly Lands at Think Tank Taking Millions From Foreign Governments, Soros, and CCP Spy Networks

This isn’t retirement. It’s the reward.

Former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has quietly taken a role as a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an institution long entangled with Chinese influence networks, foreign government funding, and open-borders activism.

Previously led by former CIA Director William Burns, the think tank has whitewashed his historically awful tenure at DHS:

“In that position, he led 260,000 employees to achieve transformational change in a diverse set of missions, including counterterrorism and physical security, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, trade and travel, immigration, and response to natural disasters. He has been lauded for his leadership skills, raising employee morale to historic heights while leading the workforce through unprecedented crises and challenges.”

Here’s why the timeline and funding sources are concerning.

1) Carnegie’s Documented Ties to the CCP

For over a decade, Carnegie has maintained a documented relationship with the China‑United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) — a core instrument of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, whose stated purpose is to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition” and steer foreign elites toward Beijing’s preferred positions.

The record shows:

• CUSEF sponsored CCP officials to speak at Carnegie

• Carnegie leadership published repeatedly in CUSEF’s journal, China-US Focus alongside PLA officers and CCP officials

• Even after direct donations ended in 2017, institutional collaboration continued

Carnegie’s Beijing-based Carnegie-Tsinghua Center remained fully operational throughout this period, staffed with scholars employed by Chinese government institutions and senior fellows with explicit CCP government ties, including former officials from Beijing’s Foreign Affairs apparatus and advisers to China’s Ministry of Commerce.

These relationships were not incidental. They were structural.

2) “Track 2 Dialogue” With Institutions Now Formally Run by the CCP

Carnegie continues to host Track 2 U.S.–China dialogues with:

• Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy

• Shanghai Institutes for International Studies

That collaboration took on new urgency in January 2024, when the Chinese Communist Party formally assumed direct control over Tsinghua University, placing Party officials inside its governance and decision-making structure.

Topics of collaboration are highly sensitive, including nuclear command and control and cybersecurity.

3) Soros Money and Open-Borders Ideology Fund the Institution That Hired Him

Foreign governments aren’t the only backers shaping Carnegie’s ecosystem.

In 2023 alone, Carnegie received $3,096,000 from the Open Society Foundations, the flagship vehicle of George Soros — the most influential financial sponsor of open-borders advocacy, immigration litigation, and NGO campaigns targeting U.S. enforcement agencies.

This matters because Open Society has spent decades financing the legal and activist infrastructure designed to limit deportations, weaken border enforcement, and reframe sovereignty as a human-rights violation.

That agenda mirrors, almost perfectly, the policies Mayorkas implemented at DHS.

The same networks that sued ICE, pressured DHS, and normalized mass parole now fund the institution employing the former DHS secretary who enabled them.

4) From Writing Immigration Policy to Taking Foreign-Funded Rewards

Since 2019, Carnegie has received at least $10,565,011 from foreign governments — money that helps shape its research agenda and diplomatic footprint. In 2023 alone, Carnegie’s foreign funding came from an array of state actors, including:

• The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

• The European Commission

• The Global Affairs Canada

• The Ministry of External Affairs of India

• The German Federal Foreign Office
  …and more.

That means Mayorkas is now embedded in an institution financed by foreign governments — including ones with their own competing immigration policies and geopolitical agendas.

5) While Still DHS Secretary, Mayorkas Was Already Briefing Carnegie’s Trustees on Migration and Security

This wasn’t a post-government pivot. It started while he was still in office.

On October 29, 2024, then–Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas appeared at a private Board of Trustees meeting of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for a fireside chat with Carnegie’s president. Carnegie’s own 2024 Annual Report documents the session, identifying Mayorkas by title and confirming his participation at a trustees-only event.

According to the official DHS record for that same appearance, the closed-door discussion covered migration and cybersecurity. “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Attends a Fireside Chat at a Carnegie Endowment Board of Trustee’s meeting discussing the range of challenges facing the country from cybersecurity to migration at the Carnegie Endowment Board in Washington D.C.,” summarized the Department.

Carnegie even bragged about the appearance in their 2024 annual report.

6) This Appointment Is the Score — Not the Side Gig

Ask yourself a simple question most Washington press releases never address:

Why would a former Homeland Security secretary, with an immigration portfolio at the core of national sovereignty, choose a fellowship funded by foreign governments and open-borders donors — unless his policies aligned perfectly with their priorities?

This isn’t retirement.
This isn’t public service.

This is the payoff.

Carnegie may market itself as a “neutral global policy forum,” but its funding and partnerships tell a different story. One of foreign influence, institutional incentives, and ideological reward structures.