Napolitano confronted with immigration reform

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
will have her first private meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus (CHC) on Thursday, a number of sources have confirmed.

The meeting will be in the Capitol, and will be Napolitano’s second straight
day on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, the secretary testified before the House Homeland
Security Committee for the first time as the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

{mosads}Immigration reform is the top priority for the CHC, and members of the Hispanic
Caucus have a number of questions about the former Arizona governor’s
commitment to enacting quick changes to strict immigration enforcement policies
put in place under the Bush administration, which the CHC has told President
Obama they want reformed.

Senior leaders in the CHC were said to be particularly curious about a number
of review and assessment directives that Napolitano has called for already.

In testimony that she submitted to the Homeland Security Committee in advance
of her Wednesday appearance, Napolitano said she has already requested
“directives to assess the status of the Department’s worksite enforcement
programs, fugitive alien operations, immigration detention facilities, removal
programs and the 287(g) program.”

Since the Bush administration undertook a much tougher immigration enforcement
strategy — culminating in a number of high-profile workplace raids that netted
hundreds of undocumented workers, many of whom were deported almost immediately — the CHC has pushed back with a multifaceted attempt to curtail the raids,
and is currently on a nationwide tour designed to highlight the impact such
raids are having on Latino families and communities.

Sources said members of the CHC are looking for specific answers from
Napolitano about whether she plans to roll back such Bush initiatives or is
leaning toward keeping them in place.

Hispanic members of Congress also want to talk to Napolitano about Obama’s
choice of her deputy secretary to lead the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
arm of DHS, John Morton.

Morton, according to a DHS press release, has “lengthy experience in
immigration enforcement and criminal prosecution … [Morton has been] responsible
for the prosecution of criminal cases and the development of DOJ [Department of Justice] policy in the
areas of immigration crime.”

The CHC has taken issue with what it perceives as the over-criminalization of
illegal immigration. Along these lines, they plan to question Napolitano about
a February report from the Migration Policy Institute, which found that the DHS’s
“federal fugitive operations program, established to locate, apprehend and
remove fugitive aliens who pose a threat to the community, has instead focused
chiefly on arresting unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions.”