Napolitano Delays Immigration Raids

Former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, now the Homeland Security Secretary, has delayed immigration raids in what may be a sign of a changed enforcement strategy. In an article that ran Sunday in the Washington Post, a senior department official said the focus will shift more to businesses and executives rather than ordinary workers.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also spoke out against immigration raids as well. She is quoted in the same article attempting to highlight the human cost of workplace raids:

"Raids that break up families in that way, just kick in the door in the middle of the night, taking [a] father, a parent away, that's just not the American way. It must stop."

I think these are great signs of progress. Workplace raids are one of the most tragic examples of the flaws in the current immigration system and its enforcement. Instead of addressing the real problems, workplace raids merely punish the the most vulnerable while letting those truly responsible off the hook. And yet they are held up as tangible proof of our tough border policy in action.

The same article quotes Rep. Lamar Smith saying that by deciding to mobilize 450 federal agents to the border in response to violence by Mexican drug cartels, President Obama ""appears to be using border violence as an excuse" to decrease immigration enforcement within the country's borders.

The notion that workplace raids, which are little more than a show of force, serve any real enforcement or national security purpose would be laughable if they weren't so traumatizing. The raids are an attempt to scare undocumented immigrants into hiding by terrorizing a small group of hardworking people. How anyone could mistake these efforts for a smart use of finite resources is beyond me.