Former Homeland Secretary Napolitano Endorses President Using Executive Power on Immigration

Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who pushed the program that suspended the deportation of certain young undocumented immigrants, supports President Barack Obama using his executive authority to deal with the immigration issue if Congress does not do so, she said in an interview published on the weekend in The Washington Post.

“If Congress refuses to act and perform its duties, then I think it’s appropriate for the executive to step in and use his authorities based on law … to take action in the immigration arena,” said Napolitano, who headed the Department of Homeland Security from January 2009 to September 2013.

While it is expected that Obama, as he had promised, will announce executive action on immigration after the Nov. 4 midterm elections, Napolitano’s opinion is particularly relevant, given that it was she, as DHS secretary, who pushed for the Deferred Action program (DACA) that was launched in 2012.

Thanks to DACA, which entered into force in August 2012, more than 580,000 young people who arrived in the United States without documents when they were children have avoided being deported.

In the text of a speech Napolitano provided in advance to The Post, the former DHS chief and Arizona governor spoke for the first time about the debates within the Obama Administration about whether or not to implement DACA.

“There were serious logistical concerns … It would run the risk of appearing to make law and usurping Congress. … Who knew how it all would turn out?” said Napolitano in her prepared remarks.

In early 2012, the former secretary assembled a small team of advisors and attorneys and asked them about what could legally be done for the “Dreamers” if there were no “amnesty” available.

Her team recommended a plan to suspend deportations, but only for young people whose deportation proceedings were already in motion, a move that Napolitano thought was “neither big enough nor bold enough,” she said.

With the DACA proposal in hand, Napolitano met with Obama’s advisors and found that some of them also had reservations about the plan and the legal consequences of acting without Congress’s approval.

Eventually, however, the White House was satisfied, and Obama announced the program in June 2012.

In June 2013, the Senate approved a bipartisan immigration reform bill supported by Obama, but the Republican majority in the House preferred partial measures conditioned on increasing resources to strengthen border security.

Obama had promised to announce executive action measures on immigration before the end of summer, but he later backtracked and decided to delay such an announcement until after the midterm elections so as not to harm Democratic candidates, according to the White House.

Published in Latino Daily News