Thread: Napolitano: Washington needs to multitask to fix border

Washington needs to multitask to fix border
Janet Napolitano
Governor of Arizona
May. 22, 2007 12:00 AM

Immigration is a tough issue and the Senate negotiators deserve our thanks for moving a bill forward this year. But as with all things related to immigration, the devil is in the details.

The intensity of negotiations and debate must be sustained because the federal government still has a long way to go before it meets its obligation to the states. As in all compromises, there are things to like and things that need work.

As a border state governor and a former attorney general and United States attorney, I can already spot issues that make key provisions of the compromise impracticable and ineffective.

For example, the temporary worker provisions do not take effect until a number of enhanced border security measures are in place.

I strongly favor enhanced border security, but I am concerned about delaying a temporary worker program until those security measures are deployed. My experience is that the Department of Homeland Security takes a long time to hire Border Patrol agents, to let contracts for fencing - it takes a long time to do just about anything. We need a temporary worker program now, at the same time the security measures are installed.

Further, the notion that temporary workers would work here for two years, return home for a year, then repeat that strange cycle two more times makes no sense. No employer can afford this schedule: Hiring and training, only to have a worker who will leave in short order. It's a recipe that encourages employers and workers to find new ways to break the rules.

Equally troubling is the so-called "touchback" provision that deals with the estimated 12 million people already here illegally. The compromise requires "heads of household" to return to country of origin, with their re-entry guaranteed. There are at least two layers of problems here: Families have things like jobs and medical issues to deal with, so leaving the country for a week or more isn't realistic (or likely to happen). Further, with the resources the Department of State currently has available, it couldn't process the paperwork for even 2 million people in eight years. Without more resources and a streamlined system, it won't work.

To aggravate the circumstances in Arizona, we find that - even as negotiators were at work on this compromise - the administration is in the process of reducing the number of National Guard members working in support of the Border Patrol.



And in a move that is beyond understanding, the federal government has signed a contract with DynCorp, allowing it to pay huge salaries to skim critical Border Patrol agents out of Arizona and ship them to Iraq, charged with training new border officials in that country. We need to keep our focus here.

Despite these and other concerns, we must push forward with comprehensive immigration reform this year. You cannot have enforcement without a temporary worker program; you cannot have a temporary worker program without a streamlined visa process; you cannot have a streamlined visa process without an effective pathway to earned citizenship for the 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in our country, many of whom have been here for years.

Washington, you need to multitask. The point of comprehensive reform is that it be comprehensive. Choose your goals and move simultaneously toward all of them.

The country has waited too long to accept anything less.

Janet Napolitano is the governor of Arizona.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... ano22.html

Janet Napolitano
Please shut up...for the love of God...please shut up...and ducktape Kyl to a cactus for Memorial Day....

Hiring and training, only to have a worker who will leave in short order.

Forgive me... but if they are having to train the worker.. cant an americna be traied just as well.. I thought these people had to have a skill no other American had..

Yeah yeah.. I know the ole song and dance.. "no american is willing or able to do the job"

OOPs they slipped... you where not suppose to notice that...

Washington needs to multitask to fix border

You mean, sorta like YOU do, Janet?

Oye! we're in trouble cause she's no rocket scientist and her state is a pretty bad mess after her MULTI TASKING experiments.

To aggravate the circumstances in Arizona, we find that - even as negotiators were at work on this compromise - the administration is in the process of reducing the number of National Guard members working in support of the Border Patrol.

Did anyone ever believe that Bush was serious about securing the border? If you did, you probably voted for him twice, as well.

Did anyone ever believe that Bush was serious about securing the border? If you did, you probably voted for him twice, as well

I did NOT REPEAT NOT vote for him....and THat is why I am so pissed