Governor Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) Appointed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

Posted 12/01/08 at 04:18pm

Today, President-Elect Barack Obama appointed Governor Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) to Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security is charged with protecting the U.S. from terrorism and responding to natural disasters, among other duties. Last week, America's Voice Executive Director Frank Sharry wrote about some of the problems that have plagued the Department's immigration agency:

Let's face it: both DHS and ICE have seen their dignity dive-bomb under Chertoff's rule. After immigration reform was murdered by anti-immigrant forces in 2007, ICE took matters into its own hands.

The agency's showy immigration raids have focused on rounding up immigrant workers and tearing them from their families to generate splashy headlines. Of course, this comes at the expense of not prosecuting dangerous criminals or unscrupulous employers.

But rounding people up is just the beginning. Recent New York Times and Washington Post exposés have revealed the outrageous deaths of seventy immigrant detainees, many of whom died because of poor conditions in privately-traded, expanding ICE detention centers.

What's more, ICE has been slamming workers with trumped up identity theft charges and executing mass trials that have trampled our deeply-held values of due process and basic justice. The Supreme Court is set to investigate one such identity theft case next year.

Finally, we can't ignore former ICE head Julie Myers' moments of sheer incompetence, stupidity, and apparent racism. These only served to further tarnish ICE's reputation. Most recently, her Operation Scheduled Departure, a "self-deportation" plan that netted eight (8) unlawful immigrants in total, was a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.

Incidentally, Ms. Myers scheduled her own departure from the Agency right after Mr. Obama was elected.

If Napolitano's likely appointment to Secretary of Homeland Security is anything, it is a welcome departure from business as usual at DHS. It is a chance for a courageous leader to restore dignity to a highly politicized agency that has spiraled out of control.