While President Barack Obama is scheduled to announce an executive action on immigration policy in the next few weeks, former Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano proclaimed her support of the president due to inaction from Congress.

"If Congress refuses to act and perform its duties, then I think it's appropriate for the executive to step in and use his authorities based on law ... to take action in the immigration arena,'' Napolitano said, during an interview with The Washington Post.

Napolitano was secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when Obama issued an executive action deferring over 500,000 undocumented immigrant youths to stay in the U.S in 2012. The executive action would create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and prevented young people who meet certain criteria from being deported.

According to Napolitano, DACA ignited debate in regards to the legality and implementation by the White House. In a speech made to law students in Georgia on Monday, she said, "There were serious logistical concerns. It would run the risk of appearing to make law, and usurping Congress. Thus, it would be crucial, both legally and politically, to underscore that each case would be assessed individually, on its own merits -- similar, but not identical, to how a prosecutor decides to charge a case."

Napolitano said the concept of DACA, which would have resulted in an individualized review of "potentially hundreds of thousands" of applications and cases, would've required "complex" new systems within the government. She identified it as "a daunting challenge." According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, more than 673,000 people had applied for DACA, and 553,197 were approved.

Napolitano described the early days of implementing DACA and defended the executive action as "the right thing to do."

"What I believed was that it was lawful, and, while it would be a heavy lift, I expected it would be doable and, in the end, defensible," Napolitano said.

"To hear our Congressional critics tell it, DACA was both an open invitation for young people to illegally cross our borders, and a Constitutional power grab in the form of an executive amnesty program. It was neither."

Napolitano did not discuss what Obama's impending immigration executive action could entail. She also did not offer suggestions for the executive action.

Obama said he will issue an executive action on immigration between Election Day and the end of this year if comprehensive legislation reform is not passed by Congress. Obama has noted congressional legislation on immigration is still needed since "anything [he] can do can be reversed by the next president."

"To move beyond what I can do in a limited way, we are going to need legislation. And if we want that legislation to happen sooner rather than later, then there's one more thing I need you to do -- I've got to have you talk to your constituents and your communities, and you've got to get them out to vote," Obama said in an address to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Gala earlier this month.

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