Pubdate: Mon, 6 Apr 2009
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A12
Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Ginger Thompson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Janet+Napolitano
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/homeland+security
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

A SHIFT TO MAKE THE BORDER SAFE, FROM THE INSIDE OUT

LAREDO, Tex. -- The five burly, sweat-soaked customs agents were in 
unfamiliar territory.

They had come from frigid ports in Baltimore and Boston to work in 
the sweltering heat of the Southwestern border. But the biggest 
change was that they were looking at what was leaving the country, 
rather than what was coming in.

"You know, early this week I met with President Obama, and this 
morning I met with President Calderon of Mexico," Homeland Security 
Secretary Janet Napolitano told them during a tour last week. "And 
you guys are at the cutting edge of something new we're trying to do 
to make the border safer."

Law enforcement officials have been cracking down on border crime for 
years. President Bill Clinton had Operation Gatekeeper. And President 
George W. Bush built a wall.

But Ms. Napolitano's initiative to send an additional 360 agents to 
the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, announced two weeks ago, is 
intended not only to respond to growing concerns about national 
security, she said, but also to change the way Americans view the threat.

Agents are still assigned to stop drugs and illegal immigrants from 
entering the United States. But hundreds of additional agents are 
being redeployed to stop the weapons and cash that flow into Mexico.

"We understand that this port needs to move, that time is money, 
especially when it comes to trade," said Ms. Napolitano, standing in 
the shadow of a line of tractor-trailers that extended as far as the 
eye could see. "But from now on, when trucks come into this port, 
they are going to see something they haven't seen before, and that's 
southbound inspections."

The new border policy is one of many ways the hard-charging Ms. 
Napolitano has begun to refocus the objectives of her sprawling 
agency. Though the Homeland Security Department was established after 
the Sept. 11 attacks, Ms. Napolitano rarely uses the word terrorism, 
and she has said she does not intend to practice the "politics of fear."

She has said her agency will devote as much attention to preparing 
for natural disasters as for "man-caused disasters," her euphemistic 
term for terrorism. She made public her disapproval of an immigration 
raid of a mechanics shop in Washington State, freed the immigrants 
who had been detained, and gave them work permits. Her actions sent a 
signal that future enforcement would focus on employers who rely on 
illegal immigrants, rather than on the workers.

Here on the border, which has given rise to some of the country's 
most contentious debates, Ms. Napolitano has essentially turned 
previous policies upside-down, warning Americans that what leaves the 
country is as much a risk to their security as what comes in.

Her trip last week to the border and to Mexico, to begin working out 
the details of the $400 million effort, was a mix of high diplomacy 
and the kind of stumping she once did as governor of Arizona. She 
shook hands with agents in the field, inspected the border from a 
Black Hawk helicopter, held meetings with small-town mayors and 
police chiefs, attended a news conference with her Mexican 
counterparts, and spent more than an hour with President Felipe 
Calderon of Mexico.

The trip offered a glimpse of the changes Ms. Napolitano has begun 
making at the Homeland Security Department and revealed how some of 
her own views have shifted since she took her new job. Ms. Napolitano 
was once a leading opponent of the Bush administration's decision to 
build some 600 miles of fencing along the border. In an interview, 
she said she had come to see that the fence has "helped us get 
operational control of some areas."

As governor, she was among the first to call for the deployment of 
the National Guard to help stop smuggling. Now, she said, "minds were 
open" to a request for troops from Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, a 
Republican. But she said she wanted Mr. Perry to explain how the 
troops would be used.

On the day after she landed in San Diego during her trip last week, a 
New Mexico newspaper questioned whether she had forgotten her roots.

"What is it about bureaucrats that makes them compulsive spenders?" 
wrote The Clovis News Journal, referring to Ms. Napolitano's decision 
to complete the final 60 miles of fencing along the border, which has 
cost an estimated $4 million per mile. "As Arizona governor she 
famously made light of the project, saying, 'You show me a 12-foot 
fence and I'll show you a 13-foot ladder.' "

Asked about the editorial, Ms. Napolitano said there was little she 
could do to stop the fence's construction because the project had 
been approved by Congress before she became homeland security 
secretary. Now that she is in charge, she said, the agency would 
invest in fences only as part of a comprehensive strategy that 
included technology and "boots on the ground."

"What doesn't make sense," she said, "is some notion that if you 
build a fence along the border, you have a policy for immigration and 
border security."

Some Washington lawmakers have also expressed concerns about Ms. 
Napolitano's efforts. Conservatives complain that they are not 
aggressive enough to stop violence from spilling across the border, 
and immigrant advocates argue that they are the same strategies that 
have hardly made a dent in the drug trade but put hundreds of illegal 
immigrants at peril.

The views are familiar to Ms. Napolitano, who spent her time in 
Arizona fighting Washington gridlock and continues that approach with 
initiatives that for the most part do not require Congressional 
funding or approval.

Here in Laredo, Ms. Napolitano learned that the heightened border 
security might already be yielding results. A few hours before her 
arrival, the authorities conducting southbound inspections stopped an 
American couple and a 5-year-old child in a car carrying 10 grenades, 
nearly $122,000 in cash, a barrel for a sniper rifle and a cache of 
high-caliber ammunition, officials said.

The man told the authorities that he was a former Marine and that he 
had obtained the weapons from a military friend linked to drug 
smugglers in Michigan, officials said.

Climbing aboard her airplane to return to Washington, Ms. Napolitano 
boasted, "We said we were going to do this, and we're doing it." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake