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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Thursday, October 06, 2011

Homeland Security Chief Fires Back at Immigration Critics

Wall Street Journal: Immigration has become an Achilles' heel for the Obama administration. Republicans pillory the White House for a supposedly anarchic border with Mexico and a so-called blanket amnesty on illegal aliens already here, while many liberals rail against aggressive deportation policies that have led to record numbers of removals in recent years.

The issue's importance goes beyond political sniping: The Latino vote is a huge prize in 2012, especially for an incumbent president who's seen his support among white voters lag thanks to a dismal economy. President Barack Obama has gone on the offensive to court Latino voters, as our own Jonathan Weisman noted last week. Mr. Obama has held roundtables with Hispanic voters, and on Oct. 12 will speak at the American Latino Heritage Forum.

Now Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is taking up the charge, firing back at critics on both sides of the aisle in a combative speech Wednesday at American University.

"Not surprisingly, our policies have been simultaneously described as engaging in a mean-spirited effort to blindly deport record numbers of illegal immigrants from the country and alternatively as comprehensive amnesty that ignores our responsibility to enforce the immigration laws," she said, according to prepared remarks. "These incongruent reactions make two things clear: First, two opposites can't simultaneously be true; and second, it's time for a reality check when it comes to talking about immigration enforcement."

She staunchly defended Homeland Security's new approach to deportations, which is designed to prioritize, as she put it, murderers rather than tenth-grade students. Last week, immigration enforcement officers nabbed almost 3,000 criminal aliens in a nationwide sweep.

She particularly defended Secure Communities, a federal program meant to help immigration officers identify criminals for possible deportation. The program has been a lightning rod for criticism, and not just from civil-liberties advocates. The administration's own task force on the program wrote a damning report.

Ms. Napolitano conceded that the program lurched out of the gate ("to be perfectly candid, this program got off to a bad start") but doubled down on Secure Communities' ability to help immigration officers get the most bang for their buck.

"Despite the misleading commentary about this program, it has proven to be the single best tool at focusing our immigration enforcement resources on criminals and egregious immigration law violators," Ms. Napolitano said.

On cue, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a rejoinder to Ms. Napolitano, taking aim at the potential for abuses of Secure Communities in certain areas. "By continuing to operate (Secure Communities) in Alabama and other jurisdictions with records of discriminatory policing, the Department of Homeland Security is actively fostering racial profiling of Latinos and other immigrants," said Joanne Lin, ACLU legislative counsel.

At the end of the day, though, for all the huffing and puffing over immigration policy, jobs and the economy are what really worries voters'including Latino voters. That suggests the key to the administration's courtship of Latino voters may not be that different than for other voting blocs: an economic turnaround.

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