Homeland Security Nominee No Border Hawk, Critics Warn
Monday, December 01, 2008
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) " Far from being a border hawk, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano frequently blocked efforts to curb illegal immigration, say enforcement advocates concerned about her expected nomination to be the Homeland Security secretary under President Barack Obama.
In July 2007, Napolitano signed what she called the toughest employer sanctions law in the country. During her first term, she established a state task force to curb ID fraud. She was also the first governor to call for using the National Guard on the border, though she subsequently vetoed legislation to grant funding for more Arizona National Guard troops on the border.
But Napolitano opposes a border fence, supports expanding a controversial technology visa program and favors a "stringent pathway to citizenship."
She has also vetoed a bill requiring voter ID, vetoed a bill requiring local law enforcement to enforce immigration law, and later vetoed another proposal to allow local sheriffs to enforce immigration law.
She also vetoed a bill prohibiting Mexican consul ID cards that critics say are prone to fraud, vetoed an English-only bill, and vetoed a bill to criminalize illegal immigration.
Napolitano"s tough rhetoric on enforcing immigration laws " often chastising the Bush administration for not doing enough " was rarely matched by her record, said Arizona state Rep. Russell Pearce, a Republican, who as chairman of the state House appropriations committee, wrote numerous immigration bills that were vetoed by the governor.
"She issued in 2005 a declaration of emergency, yet she has done nothing to really secure the border," said Pearce, who was recently elected to the state Senate.
"The governor has done everything she can to be an open borders governor. If not for a supermajority in the House and the Senate and 80 percent of the public for it, she would not have signed the employer sanctions bills," Pearce told CNSNews.com. "She was backed into a corner. Yet people continue to give her credit."
Securing the border is a chief responsibility for the Homeland Security Department, which includes agencies such as the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Napolitano"s state of Arizona has a 376-mile border with Mexico.
The governor has spoken several times about seeing first-hand the problems with drug smuggling, human trafficking and other crimes that result from poor border security.
In a
speech on illegal immigration at the National Press Club in Washington in February 2007, Napolitano said she vetoed the legislation "I deemed overly harsh and ineffective."
Then she said, "I declared a state of emergency and was the first governor to openly advocate for the National Guard at the border. Yet, I also have refused to agree that a wall by itself is the answer. As I often say, "you show me a 50-foot wall and I"ll show you a 51-foot ladder."
In that same speech, she advocated a "pathway to citizenship" proposal that would require those here illegally to go to the back of the line, pay some back taxes and learn English. This is the same as the Bush administration-backed proposal, which was twice rejected by Congress after a public outcry from critics who considered the plan "amnesty."
Concerning her likely future department, the governor said at the press club, "The failure to adequately control our borders reveals deep cracks in our Department of Homeland Security, unfairly affects states like mine that are on the border, and gives rise to ugly, unproductive, political rhetoric."
Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, called Napolitano out for her support of expanding the H1-B Work Visa program. The program allows a maximum of 65,000 professionals in "special occupations" valuable to the U.S. economy to get a visa.
Last year, Napolitano asked congressional leaders to expand the number of H1-B visas issued by 20,000. Her request was joined in a
letter by the governors of Washington, California, Indiana, Colorado, Massachusetts, Wyoming, New York, Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada and Texas.
But the visa program is wrought with fraud, according to a report last month from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The
report said foreign workers forge documents, provide fake degrees and phony U.S. companies with phony locations. Further, the report said one in five H1-B visas is affected by fraud or other technical violations.
"She has vetoed all sorts of enforcement measures," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told CNSNews.com. "She was an early supporter of Barack Obama. It was a political decision. I don"t think she was a strong choice."
The governor"s record is at best mixed, said Bob Kane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
"The compelling thing about her running the Department of Homeland Security is that she won"t have the federal government to blame any more," Kane told CNSNews.com. "Securing the country is the Department of Homeland Security"s mission. He has got the advantage of first-hand knowledge. I hope she will use that first-hand knowledge along with the resources of the Homeland Security Department."
Several tough immigration measures became law in Arizona because of ballot measures. These ballot measures include denying in-state college tuition to illegal aliens, denying state benefits to illegal aliens, and denying punitive damages in lawsuits to illegal aliens.
Napolitano could be an improvement for the overall Obama administration, given the president-elect"s campaign rhetoric denouncing ICE raids, said Bryan Griffith, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies.
"Obama is not particularly fond of immigration raids," Griffith told CNSNews.com. "That"s a good tool for worksite enforcement and a way to catch many illegal immigrants at once."
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Meet the new Homeland Security Secretary
