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A Tale of Two Janets

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These days Janet Napolitano has been singing a different tune on immigration than she did as a border state governor, and it’s a bit off key.

This week, at the 2009 Border Security Conference in El Paso, Texas, Secretary Janet Napolitano was reported as saying:

 …we’re taking a common-sense, comprehensive look at both new and old programs to ensure that we have the most effective approach possible. Now in some instances, that means that we are continuing things that were initiated in the past. Why? … Well, because when you look at some of these things and you look at them carefully, and you look at them in the context of what we are trying to accomplish, in other words, linking things together, we find that they are consistent with our values and they make sense from a law enforcement perspective.

Late last month, a number of groups took to the streets, protesting DHS and Napolitano for not doing enough to end ineffective Bush-era tactics. These protests came on the heels of a few reports that revealed one thing: misguided DHS enforcement tactics are not working, not even from a “law enforcement perspective.”

The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Yeshiva University reported on ICE raid violations; the Police Foundation reported on the ineffectiveness of 287(g); and the National Immigration Law Center released a scathing report on DHS’ mismanagement of immigration jails.