Napolitano Correctly Characterizes Immigration Law; Right-Wingers Go Batty

Here's one of those tempests in a teapot stirred up by conservative bloggers and ultimately borne of simple ignorance.

The Right-wingers are frothing at the mouth over an aside made by Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano while discussing immigration enforcement in a recent interview with CNN. The offending statement:

What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery.

And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.

Shocking, I know.

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey plays that smug game of gotcha:

The penal code makes illegal immigration a crime, one which Napolitano’s department is supposed to investigate and prosecute.  One might think that a person put in charge of the Department of Homeland Security would have familiarized herself with this particular law after having been in the position for several months.

Rob at Say Anything adds:

If we let our political leaders ignore or write off parts of the law that they find politically inconvenient we set a precedent where by the political elite do just about anything they want

Aren't liberals stupid?

Actually, no. Both bloggers cite the U.S. criminal code and point out that entering the country illegally -- evading a border check-point, presenting false ID, that stuff -- is a federal misdemeanor. Which is true.

But Napolitano had said that "crossing the border is not a crime per se," and she's 100% correct. She simply understands that around half of the "illegal immigrants" in this country (the exact number varies by study) entered legally and stayed when their visas expired. Being here without papers is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.

So she said -- while discussing undocumented workers who were picked up on a job-site, not while crossing the border illegally, "some" of it is criminal and "most of that is civil." The most you can criticize in Napolitano's statement is the word "most" -- half is not "most." But the wingers assume that their stereotypical notion of little brown people sneaking over the Rio Grande under cover of darkness reflects some sort of universal truth, which simply isn't the case.

Ed Morrissey writes, "Hint to the DHS Secretary: We don’t toss people in prison for losing civil lawsuits." Note to Morrissey: "civil violations" aren't the results of civil lawsuits -- they refer to anything in the United States Code that's not a criminal offense.

And Rob stumbles over a bit of unintended irony with this: "Now, if the liberals don’t want it to be a crime then fine.  Let’s have that debate, and then let’s vote on it in Congress."

Actually, Rob, it's the Right that has long stewed in juicy outrage over the fact that being here without papers isn't a crime. They desperately want it to be a crime, and they tried to make it so (along with making entering the country illegally a felony instead of a misdemeanor).  We did have a debate over the idea in Congress. And they did in fact vote on it.

And the hardliners lost. Sorry, Rob -- the law's the law.

*A couple of small changes were made to this post after publication.