Janet Napolitano Is Just Finessing Bush's Crackdown on Migrant Workers

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"Please explain," she says, "how these efforts [to obstruct arms smuggling] will be enhanced with funding from the Merida Initiative and how this is being coordinated with the states and the Office of National Drug Control Policy."

Napolitano's immigration and border security directive isn't a statement of policy or strategy. But it is an indicator of how she will direct immigration enforcement and border control. Those who were expecting the former border governor and federal prosecutor to call a halt to the immigrant crackdown and to the post-Sept. 11 border build-up will be sorely disappointed.

There will likely be some changes around the edges, such as improved detention standards and monitoring, but no rethinking of immigration enforcement and border security will likely come from Napolitano. No questions or concerns about the multitude of issues and problems that resulted from the security-driven campaign to fortify the border and round up suspect immigrants--the value of the border wall, the central role of private prisons in immigrant detention, the wisdom of U.S. drug policy with respect to border drug-related violence, the decreased attention to political asylum and refugee policy, the consequences of workplace raids, etc.--are being raised.

A professional bureaucrat and politician, Napolitano is busy organizing, systematizing, and improving the crackdown that Chertoff so zealously spearheaded.