Janet Napolitano sounds like a good business manager. I have been a manager in business for over 30 years and she is taking some of the same steps I take when I go into a new assignment. Yesterday, she issued a press release which said she gathered all of her department heads together and asked each department head to provide assessments about their current programs, including metrics of success, gaps in service/ resources, partnerships with state and local governments and other federal agencies as well as offer suggestions for reforms, restructuring, and consolidation where needed. Each department head is to provide a final report due February 20th.
When I have done this with teams, they bring back their results, we identify the top issues, then we set our goals for the year(s).
Ms. Napolitano has already stated her overarching goal: "As a nation of immigrants, we will manage America’s borders in a way that furthers this heritage, promoting legal immigration and cross-border commerce, while upholding the rule of law."
If you further analyze this overrarching goal, you see she leads with, "nation of immigrants" and ends with "rule of law". When I studied various news reports, some of her famous immigration quotes include:
. You build a 50 foot wall, somebody will find a 51 foot ladder.
. Crackdown on employers who hire illegal workers, not workers.
So already, we know her focus. She is going to tackle employers and felonious criminals (e.g. drug cartels & gangs).
Now, let's look at her department heads' programs. She asked them to ANALYZE, REPORT and PROVIDE "What Worked and What Didn't Work" (and I love this part because this is what I always do).
Which Departments?
I. The Criminal & Fugitive Aliens Program. The subgroups include:
A. The Secure Communities Program
B. The Institutional Removal Program
C. The Fugutive Operations Team
D. The Electronic Travel Document Program
E. The 287(g) Program
II. Legal Immigration Benefit Backlog
III. Southbound Gun Smuggling
IV. National Guard
V. Widows & Widowers of US Citizens
VI. Immigration Detention Facilities
Obviously Napolitano is going to find plenty that DID NOT WORK.
Tops on the list:
1) Arpaio's 287(g) policies didn't work. She has said for years that this program was meant to target felonious criminals (e.g. the Drug Lords, gangs, felonious criminals). It was NOT meant for Arpaio like "suppression sweeps" which targets and racial profiles Latino neighborhoods. Napolitano has a unique way of expressing her perspective: "jail model agreements versus task force model agreements."
2) Felonious Criminals: What didn't work was targetting the workers. What will work is getting your Task Forces to Target the Felonious Criminals, the gangs! the Drug Lords! Stop the Guns from going back into Mexico to the Cartels! Everyone will support you on this! Stop targetting the workers or little towns like Latino Guadalupe, AZ and the Confirmation Ceremonies. Tell the evil Sheriff Arpaio to STOP his masked posse from harassing little children and their moms.
3) Southbound Gun Smuggling: For Heaven's Sake, STOP The Gun Smuggling!! And STOP or put a halt to the Border City Drug Cartels and the Violence. Pull all the stops! WE Support You!!
4) Immigration Detention Centers: Close the Family Detention Centers! Period! The End! They do not work and they cost lots of money!
Now, I do not know if Janet Napolitano will succeed in her process improvement efforts, but I can tell you this. She has a very good approach for identifying and resolving the major issues. She is studying the issues and putting forth recommendations for improvements. Such lofty goals. This is the only path to process improvement!
Reference Documents:
Secretary Napolitano Issues Immigration and Border Security Action Directive
Posts
5 comments:
Looking at her directive carefully, I believe she is being objective. She's a smart woman and I believe she will take decisive action based on facts. No doubt she is trying to clear out all the criminals and will go after employers who turn a blind eye to their hiring practices. She also is a proponent of E-verify and is looking for ways to stop identity theft.
So far so good.
Az,
I think she should review all of the contracts.
Are you referencing past experiences with Arizona budgets?
Dee :
This is not Pure Immigration News but very related. And has an impact on U. S. Latin America relations.
Judd Gregg is keeping his favoritism for Commerce Secretary.
A very strong Republican
An Enthusiastic Free Trader.
He has criticized Nancy Pelosi for Paralyzing the Trade Agreement with Colombia.
Democrats could win New Hampshire in 2010 without Gregg ( his Senatorial seat )
Obama seems to abandon the Electoral Protectionist Speech to satisfy Unions, Workers, etc...
Colombia could be one of the first to be annointed as Trade Partner.
I have been gathering Information about Judd Gregg and ( anxiously ) waiting for the official anouncement.
Milenials.com
Vicente Duque
Bob Libal, the coordinator of Grassroots Leadership's campaign to end immigrant family detention will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time Thursday Feb. 5.
Please go to http://www.garybaumgarten.com and click on the link to the chat to talk to him.
Thanks,
Gary
I. The 287(g) program is very effective and has resulted in the apprehension of innumerable illegal aliens and hardened criminals. It should be continued and expanded to all 50 states. Please continue to implement it in whatever manner is lawful and effective by targeting the communities where the criminals live and prey on the local populace. Let’s ask the locals for their full-fledged support in identifying illegal aliens, those who support them, and the criminals in their midst. Tell Sheriff Arpaio to keep up the good work.
II. The legal immigration backlog needs to be pared down by letting all applicants know that American cannot accommodate everyone who wishes to come here. We are a mature, fully-developed nation with declining natural resources and must focus our immigration quotas on those who have the most potential for helping us to remain competitive in an increasingly competitive world. Those with advanced degrees, proven innovative, entrepreneurial, and inventiveness skills must be given our top priorities for legal immigration. If applicants do not meet those criteria their applications should be disapproved.
III. A lot of lip service is given to border security but little is being done to make this objective a reality. It requires not only major improvements in border infrastructure, staffing and the rules of engagement but continuous, vigorous internal enforcement based on E-verification of work status. Without internal enforcement those crossing the border illegally will assume that if they can escape the immediate environs of the border they will be home free or, what is even worse, that the Congress will again grant amnesty to the millions of illegals who are already here as it did in 1986. The result of that amnesty was 12 million new illegals so we know that won’t work even if we add some unenforceable conditions like the need to learn English, pay back taxes, etc.
IV. Southbound Gun Smuggling is symptomatic of our porous borders. Until we find a way to reduce cross border traffic to a level that makes the Border Patrol’s job possible, there is no possibility of stopping illicit gun, human, and drug trafficking in both directions. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that extremely large numbers of people and vehicles streaming across the border daily is the antithesis of border security. No cross-border work commutes should be permitted even for American citizens since they compound the traffic problem. One has to wonder about those who work in the U.S. but live in Mexico. How can we be sure they are paying taxes as required by law?
V. American communities can never be secure as long as millions of aliens stream across our borders every year, trashing the landscape, and creating new criminal enterprises. The prisons in California are full of Mexican miscreants, the schools are overburdened with children whose first language is Spanish, and hospitals and emergency rooms have closed because they cannot survive under the burden of the uninsured illegals.
VI. We badly need a biometric id with imbedded fingerprints, photo, age, and other identifying characteristics for all of our citizens who live near the border so the illegals can easily be sorted out without too much hassle. All trailers should be disconnected at the border and reconnected to American tractors after careful inspection. It would be so easy for a terrorist to smuggle a dirty bomb into the U.S. in one of those trucks, it is almost laughable.
VII. Immigration detention facilities have gotten a bad name because of a few bad apples who abuse their authority to prey on peaceful detainees. Let’s make sure these miscreants are removed as quickly as possible and punished to the full extent of the law. Also, let’s do better background checks on the detention center potential hires so this type of behavior can be minimized. Illegal aliens who are detained in these facilities should be processed much more quickly so they can be repatriated without long stays in detention facilities. This requires more immigration judges to be assigned at these centers or at locations along the route to the detention centers. There should be enough of them to enable a decision within 24 hours with only a week for an appeal. Justice delayed is justice denied. Private contractors should be paid on the basis of their throughput rather on a capitation basis. That would give them an incentive to move detainees quickly out of the centers and back to their homelands.
The criteria for a successful deportation appeal should be rigid and few. Family separation should never be a part of those criteria. Those are being repatriated must take their minor children with them, regardless of citizenship, or be judged guilty of child abuse.
Successful appeal criteria could include: evidence of efforts to learn English, payment of all applicable taxes, absence of any zoning violations, assimilation, presence in the U.S. for more than 5 years, good citizenship, community testimonials from fellow workers who are citizens, etc.
Detention facilities are a sine qua non of border and internal enforcement; regardless of where illegals are apprehended they must be not be released. Returning them immediately back across the border merely enables them will try again aften within the same day until they are ultimately successful at a 97% rate. Able male detainees should spend six months working on border infrastructure at minimum wage before they are fingerprinted, DNAed, photographed, and admonished that if they return they will do hard time.
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