Thread: RUBEN NAVARRETTE: Avoiding the heat on immigration

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR. THE UNION-TRIBUNE
Avoiding the heat on immigration

December 3, 2008

If Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano wins confirmation as secretary of homeland security, she will be responsible for enforcing the nation's immigration laws. This is a chilling thought for those of us who have witnessed up close how Napolitano can be vexed to the point of paralysis by that highly charged issue.

I met Napolitano when I was working as a reporter and metro columnist at The Arizona Republic in the late 1990s. After serving as a legal adviser to Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991, she enjoyed a meteoric rise as a public official. She was named a U.S. attorney by President Bill Clinton, then was elected Arizona's attorney general in 1998. Four years later, she was elected governor, winning re-election in 2006.

One thing that helped fuel her ascent, her critics say, is that Napolitano rarely takes action without doing the political equivalent of a cost-benefit analysis. She often makes decisions based not on what is right and wrong, but on the benefit she'll derive and what that will cost her politically. A lot of politicians do the same thing. But Napolitano does it better than most, and she's more obvious about it. At the end of the day, she is a lawyer with one client: herself. And that instinct gets her into trouble when she puts political expediency before principle.

According to her critics, that's what happened in Chandler, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb where, in July 1997, Arizonans witnessed a horrendous abuse of power. A tag team of local police and Border Patrol agents – in a futile attempt to purge the city of illegal immigrants over the course of a few days – trampled the civil rights of U.S. citizens.

What became known as the Chandler Roundup resulted in the apprehension and deportation of more than 400 illegal immigrants. But because the law enforcement net was cast wide enough to ensnare anyone who looked like an illegal immigrant – i.e., brown skin, Spanish accents, or even, as one Chandler police officer later told stunned state investigators looking into the incident, a “smellâ€

All citizens can be detained until identified, if a person is not prudent and does not carry their identification with them.

If they are interfering in the execution of law enforcement action, they deserve to be arrested.

Dixie

Originally Posted by Dixie

All citizens can be detained until identified, if a person is not prudent and does not carry their identification with them.

If they are interfering in the execution of law enforcement action, they deserve to be arrested.

Dixie

Exactly. If even non-citizens have rights in this country--the citizens have the right to be protected from law breakers.

Even the Reconquistas like Navarette aren't happy with Napolitano as DHS Secretary....she's too soft on illegal alien enforcement and doesn't want the border fence put up....but she sent the National Guard once and as I recall...they were only there to observe...they weren't allowed to detain any illegals.

Originally Posted by Dixie

All citizens can be detained until identified, if a person is not prudent and does not carry their identification with them.

If they are interfering in the execution of law enforcement action, they deserve to be arrested.

Dixie

Very well said Dixie!