Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: U.S. to punish employers, too

By Ramon Bracamontes
El Paso Times
Posted: 08/12/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

EL PASO -- Business people who hired undocumented immigrants often have gone unpunished, but those days will end, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday at UTEP.

As immigration laws are reformed, businesses will continue to be audited. Investigators and prosecutors who find undocumented workers will arrest, charge and deport them, she said.

But unlike in the old days, the business operators who hired illegal immigrants will be punished, too, Napolitano said.

"We need to make sure work-site enforcement is done. We need to make sure we are building cases against employers," she said in a speech at the sixth annual Border Security Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso.

She said immigration enforcement and the Southwest border are being looked at differently in other ways.

"For the past eight years or so, the federal government's approach to the Southwest border was to treat it as a problem sect and to treat it as something to be dealt with separately from our nation's broader challenges with immigration, security, counter-narcotics enforcement and international relations.

Well, let me tell you, the issues we have with the Southwest border are not distinct and separate."

Any changes to immigration laws would include citizenship opportunities, Napolitano said. Laws would be enforced evenly, including labor laws.

Part of the reform movement will include helping employers verify whether a worker is authorized to be in the U.S.

This technologically advanced federal system will help employers check an applicant's status without having to rely on a Social Security number, she said.

But the details of Obama's immigration reform policies will not be unveiled until January, Napolitano said.

While in El Paso, she also announced an additional $30 million in Operation Stonegarden grants that can be used by law enforcement agencies along the border.

The operation gives Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California access to federal money that must be used for crime-fighting programs on the border.

Ramon Bracamontes may be reached at rbracamontes@elpasotimes.com; 546-6142.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_13041867