Napolitano Brings Fresh View To Border Issues
December 2nd, 2008, 5:01 pm · 5 Comments · posted by Joaquin
In his run-up to being elected America’s 44th president, Barack Obama promised to take up the matter of immigration reform in his first term.
Don’t bet on it.
With economic issues front and center, it’s understandable that the president-elect will immeadiately face what most Americans would consider to be more pressing matters, including a deep recession and the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs as key industries struggle for viability. The fire and fervor of the great U.S. immigration debate of 2006 seems a bit of a distant memory now that American voters have mostly dispatched the hard right rhetoric from the usual suspects.
The House Republicans whose blood boiled over Mexican immigrants two years ago are still an angry bunch, but they have largely been marginalized over the last two national elections. Democrats have built larger majorities in the House and Senate. It appears that Senate Dems will have 58 seats in getting ever closer to the sort of numbers that can overcome the sort of legislative blockade that sunk immigration reform efforts in 2006.
Bashing Latinos and immigrants is not a winning ticket for the beleaguered Republicans, but don’t expect many of their leaders to get it. They can’t help themselves, it would seem, and even after losing a presidential election in which the Democratic candidate gained nearly 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, right-tilting GOPers will keep at it, clinging to their ideology above all else on issues such as immigration.
This was in evidence again this week after Obama announced that he was nominating Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to be the nation’s third Homeland Security secretary. Napolitano’s credentials for the job are solid beyond being a border governor who has had to address difficult immigration issues. She was also Arizona’s attorney general, and before that was the U.S. attorney for Arizona, where she was one of the federal government’s chief prosecutors in the Southwest.
Napolitano has largely been a centrist on the immigration issue, raising the ire of both the political right and left in her state, where this issue has a particular volatility. As governor, Napolitano spoke out forcefully against the construction of a border fence, and also vetoed legislation that would allow police officers to arrest undocumented immigrants. She also worked to bring humanitarian help to immigrants who get lost and wander the Arizona desert while entering the country illegally.
On the flip side, Napolitano signed into law legislation that would fine, and possibly shut down businesses in Arizona that hire undocumented immigrants. It’s a varied and pragmatic view on a contentious issue. Gov. Napolitano has been tough on illegal immigration while also showing compassion toward immigrants.
That’s not good enough for Lamar Smith, a Texas congressman, and one of the more stridently anti-immigrant Republicans in the House. After Obama’s selection of Napolitano this week, Smith told USA Today that the Arizona governor is “nothing more than a sheep in wolf’s clothing” when it comes to immigration enforcement.
To the dismay of Smith and others of his political ilk, Obama’s nomination of Napolitano to be Homeland Security secretary increases the odds the president-elect will take up some form of immigration reform in his first term given the governor’s knowledge of the issue, and her background from the Southwest.
Unlike her predecessors in Homeland Security - both of whom are from the Northeast and know little if anything about immigration and the border - Napolitano’s nomination should bring some reassurance to regions like the Rio Grande Valley. A region like ours understands the need for border security while also believing that the needs of business and commerce should be taken into consideration, along with the value of contributions made by immigrants.
Napolitano was firm in her support of the immigration reform bill that failed two years, which attempted to balance border security with the need to deal realistically with the 10-million plus undocumented immigrants now living in the United States. One of her key determinations will be whether to continue with the construction of costly border fences in a time of limited resources when those dollars could be better used to hire and train more Border Patrol agents and other federal law enforcement officers.
Napolitano’s scope as Homeland Security secretary will go far beyond border and immigration issues. Still, it will be good to finally have a leader in Homeland Security of her stature and knowledge who will view the border as more than a place to put up barriers when a more balanced and varied view is needed to address some of the more difficult issues of our day.
- R.D. Cavazos
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“Napolitano has largely been a centrist on the immigration issue, raising the ire of both the political right and left in her state, where this issue has a particular volatility. As governor, Napolitano spoke out forcefully against the construction of a border fence, and also vetoed legislation that would allow police officers to arrest undocumented immigrants. She also worked to bring humanitarian help to immigrants who get lost and wander the Arizona desert while entering the country illegally.”
CENTRIST IS WHAT YOU CALL A LEFTY ON IMMIGRATION - No fence - don’t allow Police to round up illegals - Sounds like more left wing dribble to me.
“Bashing Latinos and immigrants is not a winning ticket for the beleaguered Republicans, but don’t expect many of their leaders to get it. ”
THERE YOU GO AGAIN…REPUBLICANS ARE NOT BASHING LATINOS…THEY ARE BASHING ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES. The Herald and you are dishonest enough to twist the position of closed borders into a an anti-Latino position, but that does not make it true. Case in point - McCain was as much or MORE PRO ILLEGAL LATINO IMMIGRANT than any other candidate running, including Obama. Did the Herald EVER run a single positive story on his position on immigration - NO THEY DID NOT. This article is plain dishonest.
Thanks for reading, Jose, but it’s a fact that some leading national Republican Party figures believe their party has a major Hispanic problem because of the hostility demonstrated by some of its politicians and associated media during the immigration reform debate of 2006.
The whole `we’re not against immigration, just illegal immigration,’ line doesn’t wash, because there are very few if any any conservative Republicans who support the notion of increasing the number of legal immigrant slots.
Immigration is truly a difficult issue. There are so many underlying factors that can’t be solved following technicalities alone. Immigration reform is a long process.
Unfortunately, there are so many other pressing issues. And according majority of Americans, the economy is the number one issue the country is facing right now.
An Open Letter to Janet Napolitano,
Secretary of Homeland Security,
Regarding One of the Top Candidates for CBP
Dear Secretary Napolitano:
I write this letter because Alan Bersin is rumored to be on a short list of people who seek to run the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. If I didn’t say anything against the possibility of him rising to such a position I would feel as though I was letting my fellow citizens down, especially in light of the faith that so many, like me, have placed in President Barack Obama.
Obama has declared before the world that he is about reaching across aisles, about collaborating, about listening, so that better minds can make the changes our country and, indeed, our world needs if our troubled times are to be turned around. His recent outreach to the Iranian people said volumes about how dedicated he is to working with others, no matter how different their ideals and ways of thinking might be compared to ours.
Well, whales will be dancing at the Apollo before Alan Bersin works in collaboration with anyone, before he listens to anybody, before he treats anybody with the human respect and understanding they need to feel satisfied that they’re contributing to the creation of a better world.
Oh, he’ll give you and Obama and any upper level person in the administration a smile that will sweep you off your feet. He’ll shake your hand in standard ways or like a soulbrother, whatever will make him seem like “the man.” He’ll say whatever needs to be said to impress but, Lordy, the people who work under him will face a level of humiliation and stress no wellmeaning human would deserve. There will be no “Yes ‘We’ Can” under his command. He’s the epitome of the cliche: His way or the highway.
As a principal when he was at the helm of San Diego City Schools I saw him dismiss people’s concerns and ideas as though he was trying to set a “Guinness record for ignoring people.”
At a meeting in my neighborhood at the beginning of his term he literally turned his back to Latino activist friends of mine because he didn’t “respect” them or their questions. That sure showed.
He took us principals on a yacht cruise around the harbor and before we had barely sailed he made it clear that parents would have very little to say regarding what happened in our schools. Wasn’t long before that was old news.
He demoted some principals for reasons never disclosed. Now that was his prerogative but some in that group were among the most outstanding educators on this planet, let alone San Diego City Schools.
I once made a statement at a meeting reacting to something he had said, nothing contentious, just a different slant - and when I was done he went on to the next agenda item as though I didn’t even exist. I had never experienced anything quite like that and I have sat at the back of a few buses.
I spent my entire career in the school system working to make it human and caring and respectful and child oriented and he, in his first moments on the job, blasted that kind of thinking to kingdom come. The school system, years later, still suffers from a lack of morale.
This will be your U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency if you select Alan Bersin to run it. It will be a sore thumb, an hypocrisy in an administration that is promoting hope and change.
As a native of Tucson, a “Sonoran” to my very core, I shiver at the thought that this man would have anything to do with the Arizona border. I don’t know who else is on your list but there has to be somebody available who will be tough on terrorists, who will “serve the American public with vigilance, integrity and professionalism” without going about it like the Godfather.
Sincerely,
Ernie McCray
first off what do you mean “but it’s a fact that some leading national Republican Party figures believe their party has a major Hispanic problem because of the hostility demonstrated by some of its politicians and associated media during the immigration reform debate of 2006.” Some Republican figures, as in 5 people, 5%, what kind of numbers are you talking about? who are you talking about?
i’d have to agree with jose… could there be a reason other than racism towards mexicans as to why increasing the number of legal immigrant slots is a bad idea (economics, crime, over population, limited amount of jobs, etc.)?