by Kortney Gessler
The president has opted to fill his cabinet with liberals and individuals who have been evading taxes for years. One of the most profound individuals to be nominated for his cabinet is Janet Napolitano for Secretary of Homeland Security. Janet Napolitano is in control of our borders, our national security, and more importantly ICE. Many are not familiar with Napolitano, but those of us who are from Arizona are more than familiar with Napolitano's political track record.
Napolitano was the governor of Arizona for many years. Napolitano allowing the borders to stay open for many years has led to many problems. From higher prison population of illegal immigrants to a full blown drug war on the border, our border states have become a very dangerous area to live in.Napolitano was elected governor of Arizona in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. She failed Arizonans miserably on various different areas, most importantly illegal immigration and the ripple effects thereof. As governor of Arizona, Napolitano failed to back the voters on Prop 200 and Prop 202. The governor, who is an attorney, depended upon the Attorney General's interpretation of Prop 200 to only apply to parts of Title 46 of the State Welfare Code and not to the state run insurance (ACHESS) for the poor or anything within the state welfare code that applies to federally funded programs. That leaves very little left within Prop 200 that the voter passed initiative was intended for. The creators of Prop 200 and the voters of Arizona wanted the law to be applied to any state and local aid, voter registration, and rental obligations to prove that the individual is a citizen and legal resident. In 2004 the court of appeals dismissed a case challenging the constitutionality of prop 200 stating the plaintiffs lacked substantial evidence that there would be uncontrollable persecution because of the law. The 9th district ordered the court of appeals to dismiss the case without prejudice, allowing the governor to sign Prop 200 into law.
Great! Prop 200 goes into law two years after the voters approved it. Napolitano and Goddard (Arizona's AG) applied the law in such a narrow fashion that government agencies were able to skate around the new requirements aimed at minimizing state and local aid to illegal immigrants. In 2008, the courts ruled that voters could sue Napolitano and directors of government agencies forcing them to prove how, or how not, they have enforced this law. When the courts handed this ruling down, Napolitano placed blame at Goddard's feet stating she enforced the law according to Goddard's interpretation of the law and not how it is actually worded. A small victory for the 'Zonies.Prop 202, aptly named, the Employer Sanction Law is one more voter approved bill that Napolitano was initially against going into affect. This bill would require that all employers verify an applicant's legal right to work, beyond the traditional I-9 verification. Should an employer knowingly hand down employment to an illegal alien the employer would first be fined, and for a second offense, would have their state business license revoked. The bill initially required employers to conduct E-verify investigations into the legal status of an applicant to ensure that the individual was legal to work in the United States. A similar bill was passed in Payson, Arizona and was well received within the small community. The state bill was drafted based on the local bill passed in Payson several years ago. Prop 202 was passed by the voters and went into effect on January 1st, 2008. Prior to the law going into effect many of the industries that employed illegal immigrants - construction, farming, etc - saw their employees leaving the industry and the state all together.
A mere 10 months later the law went under a reconstruction that many high government officials, including Napolitano refused to take a stance on. The reconstruction of the law abolished the e-verify requirements, granted immunity to business owners, and even granted immunity to the employees conducting the hiring requirements of the applicants - should the business owner prove that the employee had no prior knowledge of the individual's legal status within the United States - furthermore requiring the Federal Government to step in prior to the State moving to press charges because immigration is a federally mandated issue and not a state one. Napolitano took a well opinionated stance against prop 200 and prop 202 prior to the voters going to the ballots, but she refused to take a stance on the addendums to the newest law stating she did not want to influence the voters and she does not take a public stance on all voter approved laws. However, she is pleased with the addendums to the bill that took away its effectiveness to enforce hiring laws.Furthermore, Napolitano yanked the funding for Sheriff Joe Arpaio to continue his enforcement of deportation of illegal immigrants, placing the funding into the Department of Public Safety. Napolitano and Arpiao have battled over the raids that the Sheriff's deputies have done on illegal immigrants for quite some time. When Napolitano saw an increase in the deputies arresting and processing the illegal immigrants, she took the money Arpiao used stating that the outstanding felony warrants needed to be served and would now be handled by DPS. It did not matter that Arpiao has the support of the majority of Maricopa County residents for his raids and deportation of the illegal immigrants. Arpiao is a nationally known Sheriff for his Tent City Jail, and the pink underwear. He has been dubbed the toughest sheriff in America, but has continued to defeat his opposition every year he is up for re-election. He is, obviously, well liked by the residents of Maricopa County.
This is the woman who is now the Secretary of Homeland Security. Homeland Security not only covers the areas of terrorism and domestic terrorism, as defined within the Patriot Acts, but also ICE. ICE is the division of Homeland Security charged with enforcing federally mandated immigration laws and conducting the deportation of illegal aliens residing within the borders of the United States. ICE became so over loaded chasing terrorists and domestic terrorists that they fell behind on the deportation of illegal immigrants. Arizona state law states that an illegal immigrant charged with a felony is supposed to be deported by ICE, to their native country, within 6 months of their parole/release date. Rather than this happening, many illegal immigrant convicts were released back into Arizona society to reoffend and go back into Arizona prisons.To assist on alleviating the prison overcrowding, Napolitano suggested the building of a prison within Mexico's borders that would house Mexican nationals convicted under Arizona state laws. This prison would be run under the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC), but the Mexican Consulate and opposition of this proposition stated it would be inhumane to have these individuals housed in a prison within their country.
There is currently an escalating prison population of Mexican Nationals within the ADOC, and an elevated drug war on the Border States. The Mexican government has deployed their military into the border towns to help control the drug war that has escalated to dangerous levels. There are more individuals killed per capita in border towns than in Iraq each year! Napolitano says there is not a problem on the borders, to only back track and edit her statement to say there is a problem on the border, but not as bad as what it seems.Napolitano proved to Arizonans that she did not wish to support what state residents wanted fixed. She repeatedly states that there is a need to fix the immigration problem, but failed to do so when the voters got fed up with the huge influx of illegal immigration and the problems that came with it. To further the importance of this issue, the event that forced the creation of DHS is directly linked to Arizona and the open borders that our government refuses to seal off. These individuals utilize the same roads into this country that the illegal aliens use. The ease of crossing into this country through a border town shows a dramatic need for actions to protect this country and its citizens, on many levels beyond illegal aliens. The liberals would have you think that she placed Arizona out of a financial hole, when in fact she left, now governor, Jan Brewer with a debt that rivals that of California (who is going, going, going, gone into bankruptcy).
Napolitano failed Arizonans in her tenure as Governor; she will surely fail the United States as a whole, especially on the illegal immigration problem. If as Governor she could not protect Arizonans from the influx of illegal immigrants who brought crime, dependency upon welfare, identity theft, depreciation of wages, and many other issues, what makes us think she can protect the United States from illegal immigration, terrorists, and assist with the rebuilding of an area after a natural disaster? But do not take my word for it, I'm just a native of Arizona, what do I know.... .References:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/24/napolitano-avoids-mentioning-terrorism-remarks-congress/http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2008/10/27/20081027sanctionshush1027.html
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/128601http://www.azsos.gov/election/2008/Info/PubPamphlet/Sun_Sounds/english/prop202.htm
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/189667http://www.nilc.org/immspbs/vr/verifreptg009.htm
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/110521 http://localsearch.azcentral.com/sp?catId=&aff=1100&searchkeyword=&searchcategory=*&keywords=janet+napolitano&address=http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/05/governor_yanks_arpaios_immigra.php
http://usliberals.about.com/od/stategovernors/p/Napolitano.htmhttp://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/27/dhs.efficiency.review/
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." ... Tacitus
O.R.I.O.N.