janet_napolitano_2Janet Napolitano may have resigned as Arizona’s governor, but she’s keeping a watchful eye on the state that she was elected to lead:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is continuing to push back against this year’s election-season narrative that the federal government is not doing enough to secure a lawless and chaotic U.S.-Mexican border.

In a telephone interview Thursday with The Arizona Republic, Napolitano cited the ongoing deployment to the border of 524 National Guard troops and a $600 million border-security bill passed by Congress earlier this month as the latest steps taken to stop Mexican drug smugglers and illegal immigrants from entering.

“One of the things that I have to deal with is perception versus facts,” Napolitano said.

“A perception that the federal government is ignoring the border, when the facts are quite to the contrary, particularly over the last 18, 19 months. The perception that the border is overrun. Look, nobody wants any illegal immigration, anybody crossing to sell drugs or to smuggle drugs, but the numbers are all trending, and dramatically so, downwards, not upwards. So, it’s important for people to recognize that our law-enforcement efforts that we’ve been undertaking in a very comprehensive manner all across the border are having real results.”

[…]

“The plain fact of the matter is that we, for the last year and a half, have been focused on that Southwest border,” Napolitano said.

“And the facts are the facts. The numbers are the numbers. We have seen dramatic reductions in illegal-immigrant apprehensions, which is a sign that fewer and fewer people are trying to cross. And we have seen increases in drug seizures and gun seizures and cash seizures, and part of that is because we are being able to focus on the drug trade as well as the human-trafficking trade.”

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Photo Credit: Phoenix New Times