December 18, 2009

Napolitano Nixes Chertoff’s Enforcement Achievements

Recently, ranking Senate Judiciary Republican Jeff Sessions ripped Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for her consistently outrageous and indefensible disregard for immigration law.

Sessions specifically called Napolitano out for her abandonment of worksite enforcement which he called “particularly troubling at a time when so many American citizens are struggling to find jobs.” [Sen. Sessions Comments Before Today's DHS Oversight Hearing, December 9, 2009]

In October 2008, a month before pro-amnesty Barack Obama defeated pro-amnesty Senator John McCain, I wrote a laudatory column about “our friend,” then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.

With Obama’s election by then a certainty, I predicted that whoever followed Chertoff would provide key insights into the new president’s immigration philosophy.

Napolitano’s appointment, one of Obama’s first, sent a chill through our ranks.

During the last eighteen months of George W. Bush’s second term, Chertoff took immigration enforcement to a level unmatched since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Chertoff’s dedication to task amazed readers since when he took office he was largely considered as a Bush flunky and amnesty advocate.

In 2007, when Chertoff promised that immigration enforcement was “gonna get ugly,” many felt that it was a ploy to arouse sympathy for Bush’s comprehensive immigration reform agenda.

On his invaluable American Patrol website, our good friend Glenn Spencer interpreted Chertoff’s posturing as a “bald face lie” and that:

“Chertoff is selectively enforcing immigration law to create monstrosities. He is doing this to evoke outrage and, ultimately, support for Bush's amnesty program.”

One year later, Spencer had changed his mind about Chertoff.

In his letter to VDARE.COM, Spencer wrote:

“Within the past four months Chertoff has taken border security seriously. He terminated the ill-conceived virtual fence effort and moved $400 million into the real fence.

“Not only that but based on our American Border Patrol aerial surveys, the Department of Homeland Security is finally building real fences that stop people at the border. Most of the stuff they had been building was designed to make it easy to climb.

“Chertoff, at the last minute, is trying to create a positive legacy for himself.”

Even after Obama’s election, Chertoff remained vigilant as he worked to close the airport boarding pass loophole that allows passengers (and possible terrorists) to print passes from their home computers.

But Obama selected long time radical open borders proponent and then-Arizona Governor Napolitano to replace him.

Napolitano has been worse than our most pessimistic fears. As Sessions pointed out, enforcement has all but disappeared under her reign.

In her delusional November speech given to the left wing Center for American Progress, Napolitano made the preposterous claim that her enforcement policies against illegal immigration have been effective and that, consequently, the nation needs to bring in more foreign-born workers because the economy is so bad.

From Napolitano’s speech:

“A few months ago, I held a forum where I heard from technology executives in Silicon Valley, our country’s center of technological innovation. They told me that they want to increase their workforce and help get the economy moving again, but some of the major barriers they have to growing their companies are visa laws that make it difficult for high-skilled foreigners to stay here to work.

“Today, we have a system where America educates many of the brightest individuals from around the world, and then tells them to leave the country when many of them would rather start their own ventures or strengthen businesses right here in America. This hurts the economy for all of us, and it has to change.”

Outrageously, Napolitano dragged out the old and universally rejected theory that her version of comprehensive immigration reform is essential in America’s fight against terrorism, a canard left over from the Bush administration:

“At the Department of Homeland Security, we need reform to do our job of enforcing the law and keeping our country secure. Over the past ten months, we’ve worked to improve immigration enforcement and border security within the current legal framework. But the more work we do, the more it becomes clear that the laws themselves need to be reformed.”

So convoluted is Napolitano’s logic that many may have inadvertently passed over her craziness that pushes for an amnesty and a major increase in immigration as a top 2010 priority.

In her remarks, the Department of Homeland Security chief claimed that Senators who voted against the 2007 amnesty promised they would vote for one later if the federal government could prove it could enforce the law.

So, Napolitano argued, based on what she advertises as her amazing record of stopping illegal immigration and driving illegal aliens out of their jobs this year, comprehensive immigration reform ought to pass in 2010.

The reality is starkly different.

Napolitano, under Obama’s direction, stopped worksite enforcement, watered down 287 (g) agreements, ordered E-verify “reviewed”, tied the hands of local law enforcement officials and halted no-match letters that would send illegal aliens racing for the exits.

Moreover the immigration debate in 2007 that Napolitano referenced happened during a historically high level of illegal entry into the United States.

Today, two years later, the number of aliens crossing has, as Napolitano stated, dropped dramatically. But not because of anything she’s done! Instead, America’s economic crisis has dried up interest south of the border.

Apparently indifferent to America’s 10 percent unemployment rate, Napolitano also wants comprehensive immigration reform to include huge numbers of non-immigrant worker visas each year. In fact, of course, Congress should immediately impose an immigration moratorium.

As an example of Obama/Napolitano definition of enforcement, look to the administration’s first and only significant workplace action, the February raid on the Bellingham, Washington-based Yamato Engine Specialists. ICE officers arrested 28 illegal aliens. [Immigration Officials Raid Bellingham Plant, by Lornet Turnbull, Seattle Times, February 24, 2009]

Immediately, Napolitano “reassigned” the ICE supervisor who ordered the raid, released the aliens and issued them temporary work visas!

Two months later, Napolitano announced that she would delay scheduled enforcement raids pending a hearing on how they would be conducted—whatever that means.

In April, Representative Harold Rogers (R-KY) correctly charged that the ICE actions at Yamato “amount to a de facto amnesty because they are refusing to execute worksite raids unless an employer exploits illegal workers”.

But the rest of the story went largely unreported: within days of the arrests, more than 150 Americans applied for the 28 jobs that came open because of the raid.

Based on Napolitano’s gift of legal work visas to one-time aliens, an argument could be made that the best thing that could happen to an illegal immigrant would be to get caught up in a Napolitano-led work place enforcement action. You’d suddenly become legal!

Here’s the 2009 Napolitano versus 2008 Chertoff score card: Napolitano one (Yamato) with its results immediately voided; Chertoff, 5,200 administrative worksite arrests plus another 1,101 criminal arrests including 135 employers or managers.

Because Chertoff accomplished so much in so little time, looking back at his record is painful. Chertoff was so effective that he became the target of more than 100 ACLU legal actions.

I wrote my second column about Chertoff a week before the election. Anticipating that whoever would replace him would be horrible for us news, I advised readers to “enjoy him” while you could and predicted that you’ll “miss him more than you think”.

If only I had been wrong!

Now that it’s beyond dispute that Obama has abandoned enforcement, it’s up to the GOP to pick up the issue as a cause in its efforts to recapture the Congress and, ultimately, the White House.

Since the Republicans won’t be cowed by Bush any more what they really should advocate for is Obama’s impeachment since not enforcing the law calls for exactly that.

Impeach Obama now!

Joe Guzzardi [email him] is a California native who recently fled the state because of over-immigration, over-population and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth rate stable. A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.