Former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is now in charge of the Department of Homeland Security which has oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). She has a mixed record when it come to immigration. On numerous issues--including denying benefits to illegal aliens, proof of citizenship for voters, arresting and detaining suspected illegal aliens, and making English the state language--she has backed away from taking a strong stand in the national interest and has given in to pressure from open-border lobbying groups. She was a staunch advocate of Congress passing the ill-fated Bush-Kennedy amnesty in 2007 and opposes the building of a physical fence along the border.
On the other hand, Napolitano was the first to call President Bush to deploy the National Guard to increase border security and she did not hesitate to sign the Legal Arizona Worker Act of 2007 which requires Arizona employers to ensure that all employees are in the U.S. legally. She therefore shares the schizoid approach to issues with many politicians like John McCain who flip-flopped on the immigration issue when it became clear that the American people wanted secure borders first. Even now we are not sure what McCain will do now that he has lost the election.
Texas Congressman Lamar Smith characterized her as "a sheep in wolf's clothing and saw her selection as "an early sign that the Obama Administration intends to weaken enforcement, push for amnesty, and leave our border insecure.
Napolitano is charged with making our nation more secure, not less secure, and enforcing all of the immigration and customs laws. To achieve these goals and live up to her oath she cannot play politics with with our laws. She should not cooperate in any effort to sweep the illegals under the carpet by granting blanket amnesty even with some conditions. Changing the law to enable the crime to be dismissed is never a good policy.
She perhaps does not understand that we can maintain a vibrant economy with far fewer immigrants than the current intake of more than a million each year. In fact, in our present recessionary circumstances, a moratorium on all immigration and a vigorous program of internal enforcement and repatriation would be a very positive contribution to our recovery. That should be her advocacy while she studies the real needs of our economy for inventive, innovative and entrepreneurial skills. Exclusive of tourists, students and temporary migrant workers, the total of legal immigrations including chain immigrations could easily be reduced to 200,000 per year with no negative effect on our economy.
The new Secretary of Homeland Security needs to listen to the majority of the American people and act swiftly and decisively to deliver the secure borders policy that we expect and have been promised for so long, going back to the time of the 1986 amnesty. She needs to ignore the special interest groups that frequent Washington and focus on what is in the national interest, culture, language, ideals and sovereignty.
Forty years ago, a president raised the red flag and asked: "How will we educate such large numbers of people? Will our transportation systems move them about as quickly and effiently as possible? How will we provide adequate health care when our population reaches 300 million? Perhaps the most dangerous element in the present situation is that fact that so few people are examining these questions from the viewpoint of the whole society..." rather than their own narrow ethnocentric point of view. The chickens have now come home to roost. Health care for the 300 million people in America is a high priority of the Obama Administration. No one has bothered to ask: How did we get here? Why weren't the recommendations of the 1972 Rockefeller Commission implemented? Why are there still those who believe bigger is better and that population-driven economic growth can be sustained forever?
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