Gov. Janet Napolitano to be Secretary of Homeland Security

Governor of Arizona, Janel Napolitano has been chosen to be Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security. What does this mean for immigration? Lets look at her record (with help from the New York Times): for her Security and immigration are the federal government’s responsibility.

• She was not in favor of the border fence, she prefers a “virtual fence” of cameras, sensors and other technology.
  
• She reached a deal with Mr. Chertoff to make driver’s licenses more secure under a federal program known as REAL ID, but in June she signed a bill refusing to put the standards in place, calling the program an unfinanced federal mandate.
• She was a vocal critic when Congress failed to pass legislation last year revamping immigration law and has also backed proposals favored by some immigrant advocacy groups, including a temporary worker program and “a strict and stringent pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants already here that would include learning English and paying fines.
• She also signed into law sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers and later complained when the Bush administration withdrew the bulk of the National Guard from the Mexican border earlier this year, as it had planned.
• She has called raids by the sheriff in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, that have resulted in the deportation of scores of illegal immigrants “troublesome” and, much to the sheriff’s ire, withdrew state money that had financed some of his operations.

Doris Meissner, an immigration commissioner in the Clinton administration who is now a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, said: “I think it signals that under the new administration that immigration is an important part of the homeland security portfolio. I think she brings a balanced view that is going to be very constructive.”

Ms. Napolitano, 51, a former state and federal prosecutor was re-elected to a second term as governor in 2006