Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano praised President Barack Obama’s administration for taking the “most serious” and “sustained actions” to secure the border in U.S. history.
“The Obama administration has undertaken the most serious and sustained actions to secure our borders in our nation’s history. And it is clear from every measure we currently have that this approach is working,” she said in her second annual “State of America’s Homeland Security” address Monday at the National Press Club.
Her remarks come after the Obama administration announced that it will begin reducing the number of National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexico border. (RELATED: McCain bashes Obama border cuts)
According to the Justice Department’s “National Drug Threat Assessment” for 2011, Mexican drug cartels remain a major threat to America’s security.
The report says the National Drug Intelligence Center assesses with “high confidence” that Mexican-based cartels “control distribution of most of the heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine available in the United States,” and production of these drugs in Mexico “appears to be increasing.”
In her address, Napolitano also pushed for passage of the DREAM Act.
“If you have to take just one element out of the whole universe of immigration that needs to be fixed, should be fixed and came very close to being fixed by the Congress last year, it would be that category,” she said.