formerly of the immigrants' rights community organization Families for Freedom, Aarti Shahani was on DN to add some cautionary words about the "liberal" track records of Janet Napolitano, Obama's pick for Secretary of Homeland Security.
Democracy Now! | As Obama Considers Napolitano For Homeland Security Chief, A Look at Her Immigration Policies as Arizona Governor
Democracy Now! | As Obama Considers Napolitano For Homeland Security Chief, A Look at Her Immigration Policies as Arizona Governor
I think the salient part of Governor Napolitano as a federal executive as opposed to a state one, is that on the state level she pushed some of the most right-wing agendas on immigration enforcement. She went full speed ahead with the Bush agenda to move them from Federal to local hands. She lobbied for federal money and for federal resources to up immigration and enforcement in Arizona. So now the question is going to be, once she becomes a federal executive, is she going to continue with the same legacy she had on the state level? Is she going to continue to bang the drum saying, we need to get money to states so they can do their own immigration enforcement just like the state of Arizona did? Is she trying to replicate the Arizona model around the country? Or is she going to take pause and say maybe immigration enforcement as the leading strategy on immigration is not the right thing? And I think when you look also at what she’s proposing, I mean, governor Napolitano actually approved the first state level employer sanctioned bill in the country. She believes in a state level guest worker program in the state of Arizona. Now we all know that guest worker programs are not the way to ensure immigrant rights, immigrant workers rights, American workers rights in the coming administration. And so I think that the fact that’s such a cutting part of her agenda is reason to be afraid.
