Cruz Fires Back at Napolitano on Border Security

Cruz Fires Back at Napolitano on Border Security

This week, President Obama continued to push forward his agenda on immigration reform, suggesting all the while that a pathway to citizenship need not be prefaced by better border security. In that vein, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in ridiculous fashion, that everything is now hunky-dory at the border:

I often hear the argument that before reform can move forward, we must first secure our borders. But too often, the ‘border security first’ refrain simply serves as an excuse for failing to address the underlying problems. It also ignores the significant progress and efforts that we have undertaken over the past four years. Our borders have, in fact, never been stronger.

Residents of the border states laugh at that contention. “‘More secure’ does not mean ‘secure,’” said Catherine Frazier, press secretary to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. “Napolitano’s said this before – the border wasn’t secure then, and it isn’t secure now. That must be the first order of business as we approach conversations about immigration reform.”

That’s exactly right. And it will be tough for Obama to claim, as he is so fond of doing, that Cruz wants tougher border security because of some sort of anti-Latino xenophobia. Cruz is Latino.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).