Janet Napolitano says U.S. will target immigration reform

by Dennis Wagner - Mar. 26, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday told a packed lecture hall at Arizona State University that the Obama administration is setting its sights on immigration reform.

"We're going to keep pushing this until we get it over the finish line," said Napolitano, who served as Arizona's governor, attorney general and U.S. attorney before joining the Obama administration last year.

Napolitano emphasized that the United States has a sovereign right to secure its borders, and she touted a nearly 20 percent increase in the deportation rate of criminal illegal immigrants since President Barack Obama took office.

She added, however, that America also needs an immigration system that upholds ideals of fairness and openness.

"What I cannot tell you is the when," Napolitano said. "We know now that health care is done, that clears the decks. . . . But the commitment - long term or short term - is certainly there."

Napolitano drew a capacity crowd to the 500-seat music hall at ASU's Tempe campus, with hundreds watching on a video monitor in an overflow room and others viewing a live webcast.

The secretary's lecture on "Meeting New and Evolving Threats to Our National Security" was delivered just three months after a would-be suicide bomber failed to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.

Napolitano was pilloried by critics afterward for saying, "Once the incident occurred, the system worked."

On Thursday, she said that the near tragedy created a learning opportunity that exposed flaws not only in America's terrorism-defense system, but in aviation security worldwide. Napolitano said she already has coordinated with Europe, Asia and the Americas to create a global fix but emphasized that homeland security is an ever-changing business.

"We know that terrorists remain determined to strike the United States," she said. "This is a constant effort by a very, very determined adversary."

Napolitano said one of her greatest challenges is balancing America's principles of freedom with the duty of protection.

"We have to cast aside the notion that our liberty and our security are two opposing values. . . . You cannot live freely if you live in fear," she said.

Later, the secretary was asked whether her decision to kill the proposed "virtual fence" surveillance system along the Mexican border means the nation's security is diminished. She answered that the high-tech program, with a projected $1.4 billion price tag, was stopped because the prototype built in Arizona was over budget, overdue and didn't work.

"We are not less safe," she added, noting that funds have been shifted to other border-protection technologies that are effective.

Napolitano has been a target of criticism since taking over Homeland Security, a mega-agency with 230,000 employees and a $56.3 billion budget.

She did not get an entirely warm welcome home to Arizona. Sign-waving protesters could be heard chanting outside the lecture hall.

One group decried the continuing DHS effort to catch and deport illegal immigrants, and Obama's failure to achieve promised immigration reform
. Of particular concern, said organizer Carlos Garcia, is Homeland Security's cooperation with anti-immigrant efforts by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.


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