In her farewell address Tuesday, Secretary of Homeland Security and incoming University of California President Janet Napolitano emphasized her department’s achievements in handling terrorist plots, natural disasters and immigration policy.
Over the past four and a half years, Napolitano’s office responded to national events such as the Boston bombings, Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy, and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Near the end of her speech, Napolitano praised her department’s work with regard to immigration policies and increasing border security.
Napolitano’s record in deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented individuals recently drew controversy after her nomination to be the next UC president.
In her speech, Napolitano did not mention the record number of deportations during her time at the head of the Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano said her office had deported many individuals with criminal history and individuals who posed threats to national security and public safety.
She then brought up her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants temporary relief from deportation to young undocumented individuals who meet certain criteria.
“(Deferred action) is indicative of our larger approach: to devote historic resources to the border, reorient our enforcement priorities, and build more flexibility into the system,” Napolitano said. “I believe we are a stronger, more effective department because of these changes.”
Napolitano closed her speech by saying her successor must create a “more risk-based, intelligence-driven” system of security.
She also said future threats to U.S. security will involve cybersecurity and an increase in natural disasters due to global warming.
Napolitano will step down from her federal post on Sept. 6, and is expected to assume the UC presidency on Sept. 30, said Dianne Klein, a UC spokeswoman.
Compiled by Kristen Taketa, Bruin senior staff.
If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth, right? the Democrats’ great accomplishment is producing the political equivalent of a Rodney King video, clearly demonstrating the lies of the right, the right Hilary Clinton correctly identified as a vast conspiracy. See Central District of California Cases, 01-4340, 03-9097, 08-5515, , 10-5193, US Tax Court 12000-07L –though I think you want to view my US Tax Court Appeal to the 9th Circuit for a good account of their day to day assaults, a few month time slice indicative of a decade of assault, and, when it’s completed, 9th Circuit 11-56043.
Typically operating through puppets the right wing has for decades been committing crimes and trying to classify them to cover them up, a move explicitly forbidden by the Code of Federal Regulations. They’ve killed several of my pets and routinely shoot energy weaponry at me and my pets, despite my calls to the police, the FBI, Congress, and despite my petitions in court.
Napolitano’s quotes in this piece are representative of her reactionary politics. Young children and hardworking immigrant families “posed threats to national security and public safety”? Then she also boasts about further militarizing the border? How offensive. Especially for all of my fellow students who are immigrants, many of whom may well have had family members deported by this woman.
Never mind that Napolitano has no background in education; her shameful record on breaking up families alone should have been grounds for her not being selected as the UC president.
As a UCLA student, social justice activist, and Californian, I’m offended to the very core of my being that this woman sits at the head of one of the few remaining public institutions in our state.
No one is “breaking up families” other than the parents who CHOOSE to ditch their kids and refuse to bring them with them. If you choose to break the law and choose to ditch your kids, I don’t see how that’s anyone’s fault other than the lawbreaker.
As a UC alum, I won’t be donating a cent until Napolitano is no longer affiliated with the UC. She has no relevant experience and her only claim to fame is doing the bidding of Big Business which wants to flood this country with an endless supply of cheap, foreign labor at a time when millions of Americans are unable to find jobs.