Secretary Janet Napolitano and former Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff talked about the tenth anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security. All agreed that immigration should be the department’s top priority. Secretary Napolitano said Homeland Security was sending out some furlough notices that day as sequestration budget cuts took effect. She talked about other effects of sequestration such as delays at airports and customs. They were interviewed by Mike Allen at his Politico Playbook Breakfast, held at the Newseum.*
“Sequestration,” a legal procedure in which every federal agency has the same percentage of its budget taken back in order to cut deficit spending, was agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2011 and began March 1, 2013.