Napolitano to Homeland Security chief: Be professional

from Dennis AmosCalMatters

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When Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as Homeland Security secretary this week, he inherited a stretched department that includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol. All have been embroiled in controversy, from viral and sometimes violent arrests of immigrants and citizens to the recent ouster of his predecessor, Christy Noem, and her right-hand man in border control, Greg Bovino.

Meanwhile, also under Homeland, thousands of airport security screeners are working without pay or walking out as lawmakers battle to enforce the borders, weeks before midterm primaries.

Mullin will have to deal with all of this. Few know the challenges of his job better than Janet Napolitano, who served under President Barack Obama. Now a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, she has some advice.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Denise Amos: What would you say to Sen. Markwayne Mullin when he takes over DHS?

Janet Napolitano: First, I wish him the best, because what the department needs is strong, stable leadership that appreciates the depth and breadth of responsibilities that DHS has, that appreciates the expertise that is contained within the department, that understands the need for the department to interact with state and local governments more than most federal departments have to, and that can put DHS back on a solid footing, because it clearly isn’t now.

What about the new hires? Border King Tom Homan, who takes over ICE?

Homan worked at DHS when I was there. When I was secretary, he was head of ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations) at ICE. I knew him. He is very conservative on immigration policy. But he’s also a law enforcement professional. He knows how to prioritize law enforcement missions.

When you were running Homeland, did you have as much interference from the White House as the department does now?

When I was secretary, President Obama generally trusted me to lead the department and consistently deliver on the president’s goals. We interacted with the White House all the time. But it wasn’t the way I see it in the current administration, where you have someone like Stephen Miller basically dictating what happens on the immigration front to the exclusion of all the other functions that DHS should be performing.

What functions are important but are now deprioritized?

One is the Cyber ​​Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA. When I was secretary, we built our cybersecurity capabilities because it became more and more important. In the last year, CISA has lost almost 40% of its staff. It existed until recently with an interim director. He reduced his functions.

Now, with the war on Iran—and Iran is a very active cyber adversary—people are asking what happened to cybersecurity for our nation’s critical infrastructure? Well, look back at the last few months and you will see.

FEMA is another. There’s this ongoing debate about whether FEMA is doing too much, whether more should be handled by the states. This is a legitimate debate. But in the meantime, they’ve removed any kind of expertise from FEMA, people who know how to get the resources you need when you have to deal with a major disaster. On top of that, you had this weird rule from then-Secretary Noem that she had to personally approve every $100,000 contract. DHS is a $55 billion-plus agency. That FEMA money needs to be moved. These delays are really hurting people on the ground.

Let’s talk about suspension.

These TSA officers have a 0 failure requirement. They must protect the nation’s aviation. And they make $40,000 – $50,000 a year. They live paycheck to paycheck. And now they are missing their wages. How does that communicate to that workforce that they are a valued and important part of national security? We already see agents calling in sick; they find a second job and resign.

When you were at DHS, did you imagine ICE and the Border Patrol would be this big and controversial?

I think the overly generous allocation of money for ICE in the Big Beautiful Bill will turn out to be a mistake. We’re already seeing that affect the rapid hiring they’re trying to do. The reduction in training required and the need for that training became very evident in their behavior in these large city operations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis.

We see it in the rush to build detention centers, based on the idea that every detainee should automatically be detained. This has bogged down the federal courts because while people are challenging their detentions, filing habeas petitions — and filing them by the thousands — other important issues that need to be resolved by the federal courts cannot be addressed.

You should back up the bus and say, is the nation safer because of it?

I will give credit to the administration. I think border security is an achievement. He allocated resources that I think previous administrations may have asked for but didn’t get. They managed to practically stop the movement along the southwestern border. I am a former governor of Arizona, so I really know this border. But this mass deportation effort was ill-conceived and unprofessionally executed.

Have you applied for more border resources and been denied?

We always wanted more resources everywhere. We wanted more resources for the Secret Service. Congress, even in the Big Beautiful Bill, failed to meet these requirements. Instead, he gave an incredible amount of money to the immigration authorities. I hope Congress plans very strict oversight of how that money is spent.

Border security was a challenge when you were secretary. What would you do differently?

Interestingly, they have been able to reduce illegal immigration across the southern border to very low numbers without building or completing their so-called wall. Our opinion was that a combination of manpower and technology would be more efficient than building a wall.

In deporting, we said you would prioritize those who are in the country illegally and have committed other serious crimes, those who are known gang members or threats to national security, and then those who we apprehend near the border before they enter the interior of the United States and settle.

What has happened in the current administration is simply a rush for numbers – get 3,000 people a day where you can find them. And then they started the business of these roving patrols in the cities.

It’s interesting how they choose cities. In Minneapolis, for example, you had about 2,000 ICE and 800 or 900 Border Patrol agents who are not trained to deal with an urban environment where there might be protests. And then they were under Greg Bovino, who was a border patrolman from El Centro. It was just a disaster.

How many deportations did you have on average compared to deportations today?

When I was secretary, President Obama was nicknamed the Deporter-in-Chief, much to his chagrin, because I come from a border state heavily impacted by illegal immigration and believe in securing our nation’s borders and an effective immigration system.

Our country really requires both.

Is it a big deal that screening agents wear masks and don’t identify themselves?

I think what is needed is for ICE to be required to adhere to the practices that we require of all other law enforcement agencies. We had agents wearing masks from time to time, but that was under certain very specific conditions.

This business of wearing masks universally is extremely disturbing. The reason given is that all agents are doxed. This can be said for any law enforcement officer. If you are concerned about this, increase the doxing penalties.

What worried me was this appearance of thousands of federal agents dressed in quasi-military gear — as if they were invading Fallujah — entering a city like Minneapolis. They had 3,000 federal agents descend on Minneapolis, which had only 600 police officers. It looked like a military invasion.

What should DHS do to minimize political damage?

It’s interesting that in the weeks after Bovino was removed and after the murders—I won’t say murders, the murders—in Minneapolis, you really saw public opinion turn. The administration is much quieter. They haven’t eliminated all the forces in Minneapolis, but I think they’ve eliminated quite a few.

I think Senator Mullen will be advised by the President that he does not want mass deportations on the front pages of the paper. And focus more on those who are illegal aliens who have committed other crimes. There are some. Find them. Deport them. But it takes more than patrols going around picking people up.

Why did they choose Minneapolis, Chicago and Los Angeles for mass enforcement?

If numbers were their game — if you looked at undocumented immigrants residing in the United States — the top state would be California. But number 2 and 3 would be Texas and Florida.

This is not an administration that favors states or cities with Democratic leadership.

Do you think DHS has too many departments?

Yes, it was created after 9/11 and Congress took 22 agencies and put them under one umbrella and then created several new ones. I was the third secretary of homeland security. Establishing clear missions, clear priorities, and truly managing it as an integrated federal agency was a real challenge. My successor continued to advance.

Then we had the Trump term and we had six secretaries in four years. Then you had Biden and he had a secretary, but by then immigration was huge. I won’t guess what happened under President Biden, except to say that the focus on the border was not what it should have been. This caused a wave of immigration into the country. And by the time he realized he had to take action, it was too late.

If you were advising Senator Mullin, what should his top priorities be?

I think he needs to restore the secretary as a serious person. This is not a job for doing media campaigns. And it’s not about showing up and wearing a bulletproof vest to show how tough you are. This is real work, hard and important work. He needs to handle this professionally and he needs to consider the whole department and not just the immigration issue.

One thing he can do is not call people “domestic terrorists” right away before any facts are known, and not pay for a $220 million media campaign that focuses on himself — and maybe not buy a fancy jet to fly everywhere.

He needs to look at how they hire and how they train. He will have such a long list of things that need to be done, that haven’t been done, or that have been done incorrectly, that he has a lot on his plate.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.