Homeland Security Losing Hutchinson

Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, twice rebuffed by the White House in his bid to replace departing Secretary Tom Ridge, resigned yesterday, effective March 1.

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Mr. Hutchinson came under fire in September after a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Times, during which he said it was “not realistic” to think law-enforcement authorities can arrest or deport the millions of illegal aliens now in the United States, that it was “probably accurate” to say no one was looking for them, and that he did not think the American public had the “will . . . to uproot” those aliens.

“I think they have too much compassion to tell our law-enforcement people to go out there and uproot those 8 million here — some of whom might have been here eight or 12 years, who got kids here that are American citizens — and to send them out of the country,” Mr. Hutchinson told the newspaper.

Mr. Hutchinson also was criticized in August when he sought to restrict the U.S. Border Patrol’s arrest of illegal aliens in the nation’s interior, saying he was concerned that the apprehension of 450 illegals by agents in inland areas of Southern California failed to consider the “sensitivities” of those detained.

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