There are three Latinos on the House Homeland Security Committee: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, Rep. Henry Cuellar, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan. I have been waiting for one of them to make a speech like the one that Rep. Jared Polis made last week on the House Floor. Check it out for yourself here:

As the immigration reform debate heats up, we are starting to hear more about detention reform from Congressional members, including Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s expressing satisfaction of seeing more funds requested for the development of alternatives to detention. I wonder what exactly the alternative to existing detention will be like. The Democrats have already caved into an extension of the controversial 287G program, which deputizes local law enforcement agents to act as immigration officers. This program has emboldened Sheriff Joe Arpaio, aka “The 21st Century Bull Connor” in Arizona.

In April, the NY Times has also reported on the lack of accountability and oversight in immigrant detention facilities, specifically regarding detainee deaths noting that:

“No central body is required to publicly keep track of deaths in custody in the fragmented detention system. No independent inquiry is mandated. The House recently passed a bill that would require states that receive certain federal funds to report all deaths in custody to their attorneys general. But the measure has yet to be taken up in the Senate, where similar legislation stalled last fall.”

I commend Rep. Polis for his remarks regarding detention reform. Now I hope that Rep. Loretta Sanchez, Rep. Henry Cuellar, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan make similar statements. Lives are literally on the line.

Let’s welcome Seneca, and pay close attention to his latest musings about possible Latino appointments in the Obama administration.

Hispanics will not fare high in initial appointments in the new Obama administration. Only three have been even mentioned: Richardson, Salazar (Sen. Ken) and perhaps Frederico Peña, but really only Richardson gets any real play. The word is that he is expecting Secretary of State, but Obama and his team may be having second thoughts and may offer him the Department of Homeland Security. Plainly this is not what he sought or is seeking, but the establishment foreign policy types in the party feel Richardson’s brash, unpredictable actions and words rattle the Foggy Bottom bureaucratic mattress mice as well as the white bread Council on Foreign Relations. State offers more flair, pizazz…shuttle diplomacy, high stakes affairs of state, cutting a swath on the international circuit. Moreover, Richardson, who enjoys a l’enfant terrible reputation that fits in at State better than the “cops” oriented DHS.

Many hope that Richardson does not become the Cisneros of the Obama administration: positioning himself as the one and only real Latino power-broker and then not even promoting or pushing other Latino qualified candidates. Cisneros, under Clinton, never was known to have  meetings at HUD for other Hispanic (read: Mexican American) appointees across the Clinton Administration to discuss the issues, promoting Latino peers, and mentoring young Latinos, whereas Mel Martinez the Cuban American HUD Secretary under W Bush had scheduled periodic meetings with the 20 to 30 highest Cuban American appointees to ensure the identification of talent  and promotion of other Cuban Americans. Current Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez is reported to likewise promote other Cuban appointees or prospective appointees.

It will be interesting to see if Obama appoints a Puerto Rican to cabinet status, which would be a first. The bottom line is: many believe Richardson is due something for delivering New Mexico (and a new Latino congressman from the state: Lujan) and working hard in Colorado and Nevada to put these three states in the Obama column with increased Latino voter turn out. Most Latinos have not yet figured out that most often an appointment to a regulatory agency (FCC, FDA, FTC, Nuclear Energy Commission, Highway Commission et al) is far more coveted by the economic movers and shakers because the regulatory process is the realm of the true economic gatekeepers in Washington not the normal executive departments.