Janet Napolitano

In her big speech in New York today, Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, praised the so-called “fusion centers” that serve as hubs for intelligence produced by federal agencies to be shared with local and state law enforcement. Fusion centers are a “a critical part of our nation’s homeland security capabilities,” Napolitano said. That’s [...]

One more thing that bears mentioning from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s big counterterrorism speech. Here’s what she said about her department’s much-derided color-coded terrorism “threat level” system:
I want to add that I also recently appointed a task force of experts to review our existing color-coded threat system – the system originally designed to inform [...]

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City to lay out the Obama administration’s new counterterrorism strategy. Her speech is ongoing, but I’ve got a copy of her remarks, and there’s some interesting stuff. The Wall Street Journal’s preview reports that Napolitano is building substantially off the [...]

That’s the question being asked by 43 House Democrats, who wrote a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last week urging the administration to consider the environmental and cultural consequences of throwing up a 20-foot-tall concrete barrier at the Mexican border.
The Bush administration, empowered by Congress, waived dozens of environmental and cultural [...]

More areas will begin allowing local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

New Department of Homeland Security agreements governing state and local police departments’ enforcement of immigration laws are not relieving their critics’ concerns.
Known as 287(g) authority because of the section of the immigration law that authorizes it, this delegation of federal law enforcement power to local police has sparked strong criticism from immigrants’ rights advocates for [...]

Rational Arizonans today are surely missing former Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who left in January to become secretary of homeland security. From The Arizona Republic:
Arizonans with concealed weapons permits will be able to take a handgun into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.
That’s under a bill signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday.
It [...]

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) gets — surprise! — paranoid and angry about all the criticism she’s getting for leaving her job.
The double standard that’s applied here is a bit perplexing. … Didn’t Lisa Murkowski leave office to go take her dad’s seat? (Govs.) Huntsman left, Napolitano just left …
She’s referring to three people who left [...]

As Daphne pointed out, the Supreme Court last week declined to take up a case brought by several U.S. towns against the Department of Homeland Security for waiving a number of environmental laws during construction of the anti-immigration fence at the Mexican border.
Those waivers — effectively scrapping laws to protect drinking water, wildlife and Indian [...]

Maybe the proposal was already in the works, but on Wednesday — the same day The Wall Street Journal reported on the problem of Mexican gangs smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country and then holding them hostage — Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) assured Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that he’d introduce a law to help [...]