Napolitano could influence immigration policy in Cabinet
The Associated Press

PHOENIX — If she becomes President-elect Barack Obama's homeland security chief, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will find herself in a position to change some of the federal immigration policies that she has railed against.

As leader of a state with the busiest illegal path into the United States, Napolitano has complained repeatedly that the federal government had shirked its duty to secure the border and therefore dumped the costs of immigration on Arizona.

After declaring a state of emergency due to problems at the border, the Democrat proposed putting National Guard troops at the international boundary, four months before President Bush took up a similar idea.

The Guard troops left the border last July, but Napolitano said Friday that "as governor of Arizona" she still thinks they should return to back up the Border Patrol. She declined to say whether she'd take that position if she becomes head of the Homeland Security Department.

Napolitano also tried, in vain, to get the feds to pay $500 million for the unreimbursed costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants convicted of crimes. And she complained that a federal agency responsible for investigating smuggling failed to adequately staff its Arizona operation and had a revolving door of leadership.

"We are going to step up and protect our citizens when the federal government fails them — but this is a federal problem, and we expect the federal government to do its part," the Democratic governor said in announcing a $100 million state immigration plan in 2006.

She is Obama's likely pick to run the Homeland Security Department. While the department is responsible for a range of duties unrelated to immigration — such as protecting the president and coordinating disaster response — it runs three immigration agencies.

Supporters in Arizona say Napolitano appreciates the complexity of immigration. Critics say she tries to straddle a fine political line in a state frustrated by its leaky border.

Unlike her immediate predecessors, Napolitano faced heavy pressure to confront the state's border problems, even though immigration had long been considered the sole responsibility of the federal government.

Early on, she resisted initial efforts pushed by conservative Republicans in the state Legislature for a state crackdown on illegal immigration. But she went on to build a record on immigration. To many people in immigration circles, her views on the subject are difficult to pigeonhole.

Democratic state Rep. Steve Gallardo of Phoenix, an advocate for expanded guest worker programs for immigrants, said Napolitano's immigration views strike a balance between border security and practical attempts at confronting the economic motive to sneak across the border. "She has knowledge of what needs to be done," Gallardo said.

Republican state Rep. John Kavanagh of Fountain Hills, whose day labor restrictions proposal was vetoed by Napolitano last year, said it would be useful for a homeland security boss to have lived in a border state, but philosophy on confronting immigration woes is a far more necessary quality.

The governor is neither an immigration hawk, nor an open-border advocate, Kavanagh said, pointing out that she wanted National Guard troops at the border but also vetoed an expansion of the list of government benefits denied to immigrants. "Her sympathy for illegal aliens reduces her enthusiasm for border security," Kavanagh said.

Hector Yturralde, president of the Hispanic civil rights group Somos America and a critic of Napolitano's approval of a state law that bans the hiring illegal immigrants, said Napolitano's nuanced immigration positions are a reflection of being the governor in a state where her Democratic party is outnumbered by Republicans.

"She is not a hard-liner on that issue one way or the other," Yturralde said.

Napolitano was emphatic Friday that she'd continue to call for returning Guard troops to the border "so long as I'm the governor of Arizona."

"That really did seem to have an impact on the border in terms of improving the level of safety down there," she told reporters after an unrelated Arizona National Guard ceremony. "Again, the Department of Defense did not see fit to do that right now, but never say never."

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