• Napolitano: Obama 'urgently awaiting' bipartisan immigration draft

    By Carrie Dann, NBC News

    Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that the Obama administration is “urgently awaiting” immigration reform legislation being drafted by a bipartisan group of senators, adding that critics’ efforts to separate border security benchmarks from a larger comprehensive reform package are mere stalling tactics.

    “The notion that we have to secure our border first is kind of another way of saying ‘we don’t really want to deal with immigration reform,’ right?” Napolitano said during a panel at the National League of Cities conference in Washington DC.  “We keep moving that goalpost.”

    Napolitano, the former governor of border state Arizona, told the group of city officials that the federal government has implemented unprecedented security measures at the border in terms of manpower and technology, reducing the flow of illegal immigrants into the country to decades-old lows.

    U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano outlines the progress being made on securing the U.S.-Mexico border and where lawmakers stand on a comprehensive immigration bill.

    “We have driven down the numbers, so that the number of illegal immigration attempts is at 40-year lows,” she said. “We haven’t seen these kinds of numbers since the early 1970s.”

    Napolitano said the president is of supportive of the “Gang of Eight” Senate group that is working behind closed doors to craft legislation, and she urged quick unveiling of those congressional proposals.

    “He is urgently awaiting the product that emerges, hopefully sooner rather than later,” she said.

    While senators have been relatively mum on the status of the negotiations, recent reports have indicated that they are close to consensus on the bill's path to legal status for illegal immigrants as well as on some border security proposals. 

    President Barack Obama has been criticized by some reform advocates for failing to address immigration during his first term, a promise he made on the campaign trail during his first presidential run. 

    Napolitano said Tuesday that reform likely couldn’t have been achieved four years ago – but now the time is right.

    “When I came here to serve as Secretary, it was not the time. There just weren’t enough people ready to dive in and there were other issues that were crowding the calendar for the Senate floor and the House floor,” she said. “But now is the time when this issue rises to the top.”

     

     

    This story was originally published on Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:40 AM EDT

  • White House defends its record of women in leadership positions

    Pete Souza / White House

    President Barack Obama met with senior advisers on Dec. 29 in the Oval Office. Valerie Jarrett was the only woman among them -- her leg is just visible in front of the desk.

    By Ali Weinberg, associate producer, NBC News

     

    A photo of President Barack Obama meeting with his nearly all-male staff – a barely visible Valerie Jarrett being the exception -- to discuss fiscal cliff negotiations prompted questions at Wednesday's White House briefing about the number of high-level women in his administration.

    The issue has gained relevance recently as news unfolded that the president would appoint men to all of the highest-profile cabinet positions (State, Defense and Treasury), even as some women were in the running. The number of women senior staff shrank even further Wednesday with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announcing her resignation.

    Responding to a question from NBC’s Chuck Todd about whether the picture “embarrassed” President Obama, press secretary Jay Carney immediately listed the names of women in the administration.

    “Two of the three deputy chiefs of staff are women,” Carney said. “The White House counsel is a woman. A woman runs homeland security for this country, Secretary Napolitano.”

    He also named Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, who he described as the “cabinet secretary in charge of the most important piece of domestic policy legislation in a generation.”

    Neither Napolitano nor Sebelius would have been in the picture that spurred Wednesday’s discussion, as their departments do not deal with fiscal issues.

    “Including Valerie Jarrett, women serve in key policy roles here within the White House, as they do throughout the administration,” Carney said. He listed yet more women: Cecilia Munoz , Director of Domestic Policy, Tina Tchen, chief of staff to Michelle Obama, Nancy Hogan, White House personnel director Nancy Hogan.

    “This president is committed to diversity,” he continued. “Look at the record.”

    He continued to list more women, repeating Janet Napolitano’s name. He also named Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who had been in the running for the secretary of state position until she pulled her name following months of controversy about comments she made about the Benghazi attacks.  

    Concluding, Carney said: “This president has made two appointments to the Supreme Court, both of them women.”