Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made her first speech on immigration reform to the Center for American Progress (CAP) on November 13th. In this speech, the Secretary not only expressed support for a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration systems, she emphasized that it was imperative for the security of the United States. She remarked, “at the Department of Homeland Security, we need reform to do our job of enforcing the law and keeping our country secure. Over the past ten months, we’ve worked to improve immigration enforcement and border security within the current legal framework. But the more work we do, the more it becomes clear that the laws themselves need to be reformed.” This stance is a dramatic shift for the DHS that used to look at reform solely through a national security lens to now looking at reform by capitalizing on our history as a nation of immigrants. Secretary Napolitano commented on the increased participation in the immigration debate across the American public, “We are seeing more business leaders and more labor leaders engage in this debate in a constructive way than we have ever seen before. These constituencies have all arrived at the same conclusion that prevails among the American people: this is a problem that needs to be fixed- and the best way to ensure that we can uphold our laws is to make sure our laws are rational and enforceable.”
http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/speeches/sp_1258123461050.shtm
