Former DHS Secretary Napolitano talks about the past and future of ICE : NPR

As Congress stalls on DHS funding and debates body cameras and warrants for ICE raids, former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano talks about the department’s past and future.

EMILY KWONG, HOST:

The Department of Homeland Security is in a shutdown after baseline funding for the agency ran out late Friday. Congress is still at loggerheads over funding for immigration enforcement. This comes after two U.S. citizens were shot dead by immigration officers in Minneapolis, and Democrats made a set of demands to restrain ICE agents, including requiring that they wear body cameras and carry judicial warrants for raids. As lawmakers and people around the country grapple with what immigration enforcement should look like, we have called up Janet Napolitano, former DHS secretary under President Obama, to talk about the future and the past of ICE. Welcome to the program.

JANET NAPOLITANO: Thank you.

KWONG: In announcing the end of the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, border czar Tom Homan said it was a success. Do you see it as a success?

NAPOLITANO: No. I think it was an unfortunate example of overreach. Actually, I’m sorry to say it ’cause I know a lot of ICE agents, and they work very hard, and they’re very dedicated. But the way they were led, the way they conducted this operation, the influx of Border Patrol into ICE and their different operational tempo, the size of the operation, the abuses that we saw on lots of videos – this was not a model law enforcement operation.

KWONG: What do you think went wrong in terms of how they were led?

NAPOLITANO: I think it begins with the direction from the White House to somehow do 3,000 arrests per day and the – kind of the verbiage, the wording used by the leadership, by not only from the White House but from the leadership of the department. It just de-emphasized what professional law enforcement, federal law enforcement should do and how they should act, demonized an entire community, its elected leaders, its citizens, its immigrant population, and then, you know, the garb, how they conducted themselves, how they didn’t de-escalate in protest situations. There are lots of things that could have been done so much better if they were really doing an immigration enforcement initiative.

KWONG: What do you wish had been done instead in Minnesota?

NAPOLITANO: Well, No. 1, I wouldn’t have sent in almost 3,000 federal agents into a city where the police department only has 600 officers, into a city that you could drive across in 20 minutes – so just the size of the force and the saturation of the community and the lack of coordination with state and local law enforcement. I’m afraid this will have spillover effects to federal, state, local law enforcement coordination in many other contexts moving forward.

KWONG: Immigration activists have criticized President Obama as the, quote, “Deporter in Chief.” Over two terms, the Obama administration deported more than 3 million people. So for people looking at that number – 3 million – and then comparing it to the recent ICE arrests in Minneapolis, LA, Chicago and D.C., what is the difference?

NAPOLITANO: Right. So yes, I was secretary when President Obama was nicknamed – much to his chagrin, I think – the Deporter in Chief. But here are some differences. One is we focused on those with criminal convictions, those who were known threats to public safety and those who were recent border crossers, so that they were deported before they’d entered the country and had already settled here. And that comprised the vast majority of our numbers – not everybody. We did – you know, these are large operations, nationally, etc. So there were immigrants picked up who didn’t have serious convictions and what have you. But the focus was on those priorities.

The training was different. In the training, we focused on the notion of priorities. We focused on constitutional rights, civil rights. We focused on the way to de-escalate and to deal with protest situations. And as I understand it, the current training has reduced emphasis on all of those things.

KWONG: Right now, there are calls to even dismantle ICE from protesters. But recently, several progressives in Congress or running for office have called for dismantling ICE or DHS. What do you make of those calls?

NAPOLITANO: Yeah, I disagree. Immigration enforcement is an important parcel of, you know, our national sovereignty, and it’s important for a number of reasons. But because it’s tough, because people are divided and because all immigrants in this country who are illegal are not the same, it requires judgment, discretion and professionalism. And unfortunately, we didn’t – we have not seen that recently in the operations that are being conducted.

KWONG: The Department of Homeland Security is shut down for the moment. Do you have any concerns about a prolonged shutdown to DHS?

NAPOLITANO: Yes. I have a real concern about prolonged shutdown of DHS. Now, because Congress gave ICE and CBP all this money in the Big Beautiful Bill, they’re going to continue their operations. The shutdown is not really going to affect them. But the vast majority of DHS – over 90% of the employees – will still have to work during a shutdown. The Secret Service still has to work. The Coast Guard still has to work. TSA still has to work, and they won’t be getting paid. And I can tell you the average TSA worker lives paycheck-to-paycheck. They don’t get paid a lot. So when they start missing paychecks, that’s real harm to the employees of the department, and it’s terrible for morale as well.

KWONG: That’s Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Thank you so much for talking to me.

NAPOLITANO: Thank you.

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