WASHINGTON — Janet Napolitano, who has served as President Obama’s secretary of homeland security since the beginning of the administration, announced Friday that she is stepping down to become president of the University of California system.
Ms. Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, has overseen the administration’s handling of homegrown terrorism incidents, natural disasters and immigration, one of the most expansive portfolios of anyone in the cabinet. Ms. Napolitano had her eye on becoming the next attorney general, but with this move is taking herself out of the Washington political arena.
“The opportunity to work with the dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, who serve on the front lines of our nation’s efforts to protect our communities and families from harm, has been the highlight of my professional career,” Ms. Napolitano said in a statement. “We have worked together to minimize threats of all kinds to the American public.”
Ms. Napolitano expressed particular satisfaction in improving safety of travelers, adjusting the immigration system to make it “more fair and focused” while still protecting the borders, working with states to improve disaster response and partnering with private companies to bolster cybersecurity. She plans to stay until September.
President Obama issued a statement praising “her outstanding work” and her friendship. “Janet’s portfolio has included some of the toughest challenges facing our country,” he said. “She’s worked around the clock to respond to natural disasters, from the Joplin tornado to Hurricane Sandy, helping Americans recover and rebuild.” She helped “make our immigration system fairer,” he added, and “the American people are safer and more secure thanks to Janet’s leadership.”
Ms. Napolitano had been one of Mr. Obama’s favorite cabinet secretaries, and he considered her as a finalist to be nominated to the Supreme Court. After his re-election, when some thought Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. might step down, her associates said she was interested in succeeding him.
But Mr. Holder stayed put and has not said when he might leave, so Ms. Napolitano was open to the California opportunity when it arose. She does not have an extensive background in higher education but her father, who died in January, was the longtime dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and aides said she has always had an interest in education.
With 10 campuses, 220,000 students and 170,000 faculty and staff, the California university system most resembles the Department of Homeland Security in its size and management challenges. University leaders saw Ms. Napolitano’s experiences running a state and one of the largest federal government bureaucracies as assets. “While some may consider her to be an unconventional choice, Secretary Napolitano is without doubt the right person at the right time to lead this incredible university,” the former film executive Sherry Lansing, who headed the search committee, said in a statement.
A person close to Ms. Napolitano said she had rebuffed a variety of similar offers over the years but when she was approached by a headhunting firm about the California position a few months ago, she took more interest than in the past. In part that was because of the significance of the job, the person said, and in part because with a little more than three years left in the administration, the prospects for making further changes begin to diminish. She would not have left, the person added, if she thought her absence would hurt the chances of passing legislation overhauling the immigration system.
Her departure creates an opening that could be hard for Mr. Obama to fill. The secretary of homeland security presides over a sprawling department with nearly two dozen agencies as varied as the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Created by President George W. Bush and Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it has proved to be a thorny management challenge for everyone who has headed it.
The job put Ms. Napolitano in the middle of a wide range of crises and volatile issues, from the Boston Marathon bombings to Hurricane Sandy. She presided over extensive deportations of immigrants in the country illegally while enacting a new policy intended to allow young immigrants brought here without documents as children to stay.
At times, she drew criticism. When a Nigerian man listed in a terrorism database was able to board a Detroit-bound commercial airliner and was later stopped by fellow passengers from blowing up the plane with explosives in his underwear, Ms. Napolitano said “the system worked.”
Mr. Obama, in contrast, said there was “systemic failure” and she later explained she meant only that the system worked in response to the attempted bombing not before it happened. After that episode, Ms. Napolitano was rarely the administration’s public face when it came to other terrorism episodes, although her department was in the middle of responding to many of them.
She is leaving right at the moment when immigration has vaulted to the top of the national agenda. As a border-state governor and former federal prosecutor, she has long been at the center of the polarizing issue and as the top cabinet officer dealing with it she has been Mr. Obama’s point person while Congress considers legislation overhauling the system.
The Senate on a bipartisan vote has passed a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for most of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally while bolstering border security with thousands of additional border patrol agents. House Republicans, however, have said they will not pass the Senate bill and are mainly interested in ensuring border security.
During Ms. Napolitano’s first four years in office, the government deported as many illegal immigrants as Mr. Bush’s administration did in eight. By the end of this year, at the current pace, the Obama administration will have deported about two million people, roughly as many as were ejected from the country from 1892 to 1997.
At the same time, Ms. Napolitano tried to focus efforts more on those immigrants involved in significant crimes and gave discretion to prosecutors in some cases. In an election-year boost to Mr. Obama, she also initiated the executive action last year deferring deportation of illegal immigrants under age 30 who came to the United States before age 16, have lived here at least five years and are in school or graduated high school or served in the military.
Republicans called that a selective enforcement of 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, an Alabama Republican, said on Friday.
He added that “any selection – interim or permanent – to replace Secretary Napolitano must disavow these aggressive non-enforcement directives or there is very little hope for successful immigration reform.”
Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.
Ms. Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, has overseen the administration’s handling of homegrown terrorism incidents, natural disasters and immigration, one of the most expansive portfolios of anyone in the cabinet. Ms. Napolitano had her eye on becoming the next attorney general, but with this move is taking herself out of the Washington political arena.
“The opportunity to work with the dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, who serve on the front lines of our nation’s efforts to protect our communities and families from harm, has been the highlight of my professional career,” Ms. Napolitano said in a statement. “We have worked together to minimize threats of all kinds to the American public.”
Ms. Napolitano expressed particular satisfaction in improving safety of travelers, adjusting the immigration system to make it “more fair and focused” while still protecting the borders, working with states to improve disaster response and partnering with private companies to bolster cybersecurity. She plans to stay until September.
President Obama issued a statement praising “her outstanding work” and her friendship. “Janet’s portfolio has included some of the toughest challenges facing our country,” he said. “She’s worked around the clock to respond to natural disasters, from the Joplin tornado to Hurricane Sandy, helping Americans recover and rebuild.” She helped “make our immigration system fairer,” he added, and “the American people are safer and more secure thanks to Janet’s leadership.”
Ms. Napolitano had been one of Mr. Obama’s favorite cabinet secretaries, and he considered her as a finalist to be nominated to the Supreme Court. After his re-election, when some thought Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. might step down, her associates said she was interested in succeeding him.
But Mr. Holder stayed put and has not said when he might leave, so Ms. Napolitano was open to the California opportunity when it arose. She does not have an extensive background in higher education but her father, who died in January, was the longtime dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and aides said she has always had an interest in education.
With 10 campuses, 220,000 students and 170,000 faculty and staff, the California university system most resembles the Department of Homeland Security in its size and management challenges. University leaders saw Ms. Napolitano’s experiences running a state and one of the largest federal government bureaucracies as assets. “While some may consider her to be an unconventional choice, Secretary Napolitano is without doubt the right person at the right time to lead this incredible university,” the former film executive Sherry Lansing, who headed the search committee, said in a statement.
A person close to Ms. Napolitano said she had rebuffed a variety of similar offers over the years but when she was approached by a headhunting firm about the California position a few months ago, she took more interest than in the past. In part that was because of the significance of the job, the person said, and in part because with a little more than three years left in the administration, the prospects for making further changes begin to diminish. She would not have left, the person added, if she thought her absence would hurt the chances of passing legislation overhauling the immigration system.
Her departure creates an opening that could be hard for Mr. Obama to fill. The secretary of homeland security presides over a sprawling department with nearly two dozen agencies as varied as the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Created by President George W. Bush and Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it has proved to be a thorny management challenge for everyone who has headed it.
The job put Ms. Napolitano in the middle of a wide range of crises and volatile issues, from the Boston Marathon bombings to Hurricane Sandy. She presided over extensive deportations of immigrants in the country illegally while enacting a new policy intended to allow young immigrants brought here without documents as children to stay.
At times, she drew criticism. When a Nigerian man listed in a terrorism database was able to board a Detroit-bound commercial airliner and was later stopped by fellow passengers from blowing up the plane with explosives in his underwear, Ms. Napolitano said “the system worked.”
Mr. Obama, in contrast, said there was “systemic failure” and she later explained she meant only that the system worked in response to the attempted bombing not before it happened. After that episode, Ms. Napolitano was rarely the administration’s public face when it came to other terrorism episodes, although her department was in the middle of responding to many of them.
She is leaving right at the moment when immigration has vaulted to the top of the national agenda. As a border-state governor and former federal prosecutor, she has long been at the center of the polarizing issue and as the top cabinet officer dealing with it she has been Mr. Obama’s point person while Congress considers legislation overhauling the system.
The Senate on a bipartisan vote has passed a bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for most of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally while bolstering border security with thousands of additional border patrol agents. House Republicans, however, have said they will not pass the Senate bill and are mainly interested in ensuring border security.
During Ms. Napolitano’s first four years in office, the government deported as many illegal immigrants as Mr. Bush’s administration did in eight. By the end of this year, at the current pace, the Obama administration will have deported about two million people, roughly as many as were ejected from the country from 1892 to 1997.
At the same time, Ms. Napolitano tried to focus efforts more on those immigrants involved in significant crimes and gave discretion to prosecutors in some cases. In an election-year boost to Mr. Obama, she also initiated the executive action last year deferring deportation of illegal immigrants under age 30 who came to the United States before age 16, have lived here at least five years and are in school or graduated high school or served in the military.
Republicans called that a selective enforcement of 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, an Alabama Republican, said on Friday.
He added that “any selection – interim or permanent – to replace Secretary Napolitano must disavow these aggressive non-enforcement directives or there is very little hope for successful immigration reform.”
Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.