Posted on 01/24/2005 5:50:37 AM PST by BigSkyFreeper
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Asa Hutchinson told a newspaper he plans to resign his post with the Homeland Security Department on Monday after he was passed over twice by the Bush administration to be secretary of the department.
Hutchinson, a former Arkansas congressman and former federal drug czar, is the undersecretary for border and transportation security issues. He said his resignation would be effective March 1 to allow a more seamless transition when secretary-designate Michael Chertoff takes over the department from Tom Ridge.
"It was just a good time to change for me personally and for the department," Hutchinson told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
President Bush announced on Jan. 12 that Chertoff, a federal appeals court judge, was his second nominee to be secretary of the agency. The president's first choice, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, withdrew citing immigration problems with a former nanny.
Hutchinson, 54, has said that he was disappointed that he wasn't selected to be secretary but is excited about other options, including a possible run for Arkansas governor in 2006. But Hutchinson didn't give any definite political plans for the future.
"We'll wait and see," Hutchinson said. "I'm ruling nothing out. I'm taking the decision-making process a step at a time."
Hutchinson served three terms in Congress, representing the state's 3rd Congressional District. He served as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and then in the Department of Homeland Security.
Asa Hutchinson violated the United States Constitution as Drug Czar, and was an idiot on the immigration and border security issue in his most recent post.
GOOD RIDDANCE AND RIH, you POS!!!
Border, Immigration, and Transportation Security Findings. Prior to the creation of DHS, seven agencies (among others) were involved in securing U.S. borders, enforcing immigration laws, and securing the transportation system: the U.S. Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Executive Office of Immigration Review, Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Coast Guard, TSA, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Agency missions overlapped to greater or lesser extents, and because the agencies resided in different Cabinet departments, it was difficult to resolve operational and policy conflicts without open turf warfare or resorting to the cumbersome interagency process.
The creation of DHS was supposed to consolidate agencies with overlapping missions and to better integrate our efforts in this area. It has succeeded to some degree. INS has been abolished, and its border inspectors and Border Patrol Agents have been merged with most of U.S. Customs and the border inspectors of APHIS to create U.S. Customs and Border Protectiona single uniformed face at our borders. However, in consolidating responsibility for border, immigration, and transportation security, DHS actually increased the number of involved agencies to eight and created additional problems that now need solving. In addition, it has failed to clearly delineate the missions of DHS agencies that also have border, immigration, or transportation security responsibilities.
Additionally, the split of responsibilities between the CBP and ICE was done without a compelling reason other than the vague (and ultimately incorrect) descriptive notion that the Customs and Border Protection would handle border enforcement and ICE would handle interior enforcement. Indeed, in various interviews, not one person has been able to coherently argue why the CBP and ICE were created as separate operational agencies. Indeed, some have compared it to deciding to break up the New York Police Department into two separate agencies one housing the uniformed beat cops (analogous to the CBPs uniformed officers) and the other housing the detectives (analogous to ICEs plain-clothes investigators).
Recommendations. Rationalize border security and immigration enforcement by merging the CBP and ICE, eliminating the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security. BTS has neither the staff nor the infrastructure to integrate the operations of the CBP and ICE on a consistent basis outside of the occasional task force, such as the Arizona Border Control Initiative. Nor does it have a policy operation with sufficient influence with the secretary to resolve policy conflicts.
Merging the CBP and ICE will bring together under one roof all of the tools of effective border and immigration enforcementInspectors, Border Patrol Agents, Special Agents, Detention and Removal Officers, and Intelligence Analystsand realize the objective of creating a single border and immigration enforcement agency. This reform could be accomplished by executive decision, without the need for legislative action.
Eliminate the BTS. With the merger of the CBP and ICE into a single agency, there is no need for the BTS middle-management layer. All operational agencies should have a direct reporting relationship to the secretary via the deputy secretary. This will allow for a better, DHS-wide (including the Coast Guard) policy and operational strategic approach to border security matters.
So you see his job is being eliminated anyway.
No, he was the administrations talking head, second only to Ridge, and they stabbed him in the back by not giving him Ridges job. Can't blame him for leaving, but the vast majority of us in border security enforcement will be celebrating his departure.
See post #23
I'm confident he will do his best.
Mr. Hutchinson, run for office on a platform of border security. You'd have maximum credibility, as you can cite what you learned in your office. Heck, you could ride that issue all the way to the Oval Office.
ping
Of course we will need to choose a better candidate, I'm wondering if that's possible.
Yes he was. That was his job. The only person above him was Ridge, who oversaw the entire DHS.
Ever stop to think that the President wanted more enforcement not less.
LOL, thanks for the laugh.
What do you think a Kerry Administration would have been?
Probably, not much worst.
The oath of office does not mean a thing to some people.
Can you provide a link, please.
Thanks.
Or, he could drag his ass out there and get a real job for a change.
I lost all resect for Asa when he decided to be Jorge Arbusto's Pimp for Criminal Invaders.
You did the country a grave diservice Asa.
Makes me wonder if some of you (not you in particular) that slam the President so much even live along the border or are just bandwagon jumpers. What do you think a Kerry Administration would have been?
8 posted on 01/24/2005 7:03:08 AM PST by PhiKapMom (AOII Mom -- Increase Republicans in Congress in 2006!)
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Then he probably should have run this past year. I'd think challenging Blanche Lincoln would have been easier than taking on Mark Pryor.
¡Adiós! ¡Adiós! Asa, no deje a la puerta golpearle en el asno. No puedo esperar a ver a quién siguiente nimrod es que Bush designa. Esto realmente no importa. A quién alguna vez es será una marioneta a las tentativas de frontera abiertas de Bush.
nahh. Bush is hot-to-trot on ripping our border open to Mexico.
Hope he runs for Governor. Don't think we'll keep it if he doesn't.
Just to ease your mind, I'll tell you I'm a bandwagon jumper...
From your statement, I get the impression that if it don't affect me personally, I don't have a dog in that fight...Truth is, we all have a dog in that fight...
Could be some of us care far more about America and other Americans (that we don't even know) than some of you...guess you just don't even know what we're fightin' for...
Maybe he had his fingers crossed...
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