National Review Online
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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Is DHS Secretary Napolitano Just an Ignoramus? [Andy McCarthy]

Janet Napolitano β€” the Homeland Security Secretary who approved the moronic intelligence assessment that suggested right-wingers are terrorists waiting to happen and returning combat veterans from our armed forces are their likely aiders and abettors β€” has now tried her hand at immigration law. In an interview aired over the weekend, she told CNN's John King,

What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery. And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well. [Emphasis added.]
Perhaps the folks at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement can explain to their boss (whose mandate includes enforcing the immigration laws) that crossing the border illegally is a crime. As Julie Kirchner of FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform) explains, Section 1325 of the federal immigration laws (Title 8, U.S. Code), makes it a misdemeanor on a first offense and a felony thereafter. [H/T: Michelle Malkin.]

So the question is: Is Napolitano just a dimwit or is she willfully misrepresenting the law as a rationale for not enforcing it? In any event, this is quite the administration. The president has just turned the attorney general loose to prosecute political adversaries for actions that were not crimes and saved American lives, while the Homeland Security Secretary, fresh from slandering the the president's political adversaries, is either in ignorance or denial about the actual crimes it's her job to go after.

04/22 09:11 AM

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