Napolitano Stepping Down as Homeland Security Chief

Friday, July 12, 2013

Napolitano Stepping Down as Homeland Security Chief

The New York Times

Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Department secretary, with President Obama in 2010.

By PETER BAKER and TAMAR LEWIN

Published: July 12, 2013

WASHINGTON — Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, announced Friday that she was stepping down, setting off a search to fill one of the most challenging positions in government at a time when the Obama administration is struggling to get a team in place for the president’s second term.

A Sweeping Portfolio

As secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano oversees a department with an array of high-profile responsibilities.

Multimedia

Interview With Napolitano (Nov. 2012)

Ms. Napolitano, a former Arizona governor who for four and a half years shaped the administration’s response to hurricanes, terrorist attacks, illegal immigration and a catastrophic oil spill, will leave in September to become president of the University of California system. Ms. Napolitano had her eye on becoming the next attorney general, but now is taking herself out of the Washington arena.

Her departure deprives the administration of one of its most prominent voices on immigration even as it is in the throes of pushing Congress for an overhaul that would provide a pathway to citizenship for most of the 11 million foreigners who are here illegally. Ms. Napolitano said she decided to leave only after concluding that her absence would not affect chances for the immigration legislation, a person close to her said, but confirmation of a successor could become wrapped up in the larger immigration debate.

Her move west creates an opening that could be hard for President Obama to fill. The secretary of homeland security presides over a sprawling department that was created after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, by combining nearly two dozen agencies as varied as the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Aides said the president had made no decision about who would take her place, but jockeying began instantly. Some lawmakers even began campaigning for preferred candidates.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, called Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, to recommend Raymond W. Kelly, the New York police commissioner, a choice also promoted by Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware, chairman of the homeland security committee, made a case for Jane Holl Lute, the department’s former deputy secretary.

Other names mentioned as possible candidates included FEMA’s administrator, W. Craig Fugate; John S. Pistole, the T.S.A. administrator; William J. Bratton, who has headed the Police Departments in New York, Los Angeles and Boston; Adm. Thad W. Allen, a former Coast Guard commandant; and Jane Harman, a former Democratic congresswoman from California.

Ms. Napolitano, 55, a New York native, is one of Mr. Obama’s favorite cabinet secretaries, and was one of his finalists for the Supreme Court. After Mr. Obama’s re-election, when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. considered stepping down, her associates said she was interested in succeeding him. But Mr. Holder stayed and has not said when he might leave.

The homeland security job put Ms. Napolitano in the middle of volatile issues ranging from the Boston Marathon bombings to Hurricane Sandy and the BP oil spill. She presided over the extensive deportation of illegal immigrants while enacting a policy intended to allow some to stay if they were brought here as children.

Republicans were often critical, saying she selectively enforced the law.

“Secretary Napolitano’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security was defined by a consistent disrespect for the rule of law,” Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said Friday. He added that her successor “must disavow these aggressive nonenforcement directives, or there is very little hope for successful immigration reform.”