Today, current Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, along with former DHS Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, participated in a panel discussion moderated by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell to celebrate the eighth anniversary of DHS. During the conversation, Ridge made the case that those who are blocking immigration reform simply “need to get over it” and come up with a solution:

I do hope that some time in the future we do end up looking at our immigration policy generally. It’s great to talk about defense we do, enforcement we do. At the end of the day, the demographics in the United States suggests that we will need additional labor going back and forth across the border in a lawful way. [...]

At some point in time I just hope that Congress accepts the responsibility and I can say this because I was there for twelve years and voted for “amnesty” under Ronald Reagan. At some you’ve got to say to yourself, ‘We’re not sending 12 million people home. Let’s get over it…So let’s just figure out a way to legitimize their status, create a new system, and I think that will add more to border security than any number of fences we can put across the border.

Watch it:

Ridge also told Americans not to be “arrogant” and just assume that everyone who emigrates to the U.S. wants to become an American citizen. “A lot of them would just love to come up here, work lawfully, and go home,” stated Ridge. While that may be true for a significant portion of the undocumented population, many undocumented immigrants have built families and established roots in the country.

Ridge’s successor, Michael Chertoff, echoed Ridge’s sentiments, saying that “we’re going to have to come up with a solution that takes into account not only the need for enforcement, but to deal with the immigration system overall comprehensively.” Chertoff also noted that “most people who come across the border are not coming to do harm to the U.S., they’re coming across the border for jobs that either Americans don’t want to work or the wage isn’t attractive.”

Ridge also lamented that “sometimes there has been hyperbole associated with the language and a general feeling that if you’re a Muslim you’ve been condemned.” He warned politicians to be “careful about the language we use to describe the jihadists and extremists.”

Yesterday, at an event at the conservative Hudson Institute, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested that trying terrorists in the U.S. could give them special rights under immigration laws that would prevent the government from deporting them:

Sometimes they [alleged terrorists] raise legal objections to going back and you can’t send them back. Our position was and I believe it to be true, you don’t want to bring them to the United States. Once you bring them into the United States soil, they will have a set of rights under the immigration laws that could well put you in a difficult position of being ordered to release somebody and not being able to deport them. I think the last thing we want to do is import terrorists into the U.S.

Watch it:

The concerns Chertoff has expressed aren’t new amongst Republicans . Back in November, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) drilled Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. on whether alleged 9/11 plotters will have an immigration status or be able to apply for asylum if and when they are tried in the U.S. At the time, Holder seemed baffled by Cornyn’s line of interrogation and said that he would get back to him with more information.

It’s unclear whether Holder ever responded to Cornyn’s fear-mongering, however, immigration experts from the National Immigration Law Center informed the Wonk Room that detainees would most likely be brought to the U.S. but kept in custody on criminal charges — without an immigration status. In the extremely unlikely event that they are acquitted, they could still be kept in custody and put in removal proceedings.

It’s even more implausible that suspected 9/11 plotters would be granted asylum — let along a green card — if they are found innocent. Syracuse University further points out that there’s a common misconception that the U.S. asylum system is abused by people who endanger national security. However, “asylum applications are subject to stringent review procedures by adjudicators in the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice and to rigorous background and security checks.” Terrorism concerns essentially lead to an automatic disqualification from asylum and immediate deportation.

In fact, a study by Human Rights First showed that immigration law has instead created a situation in which refugee and asylum seekers who pose no risk to the U.S. are unfairly denied U.S. residency due to the “pervasive, unintended consequences of the ‘terrorism’ provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

As ThinkProgress has repeatedly noted, the right-wing has used the failed terrorist attack by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to renew calls for greater ethnic profiling of Muslims. “There should be a separate line to scrutinize anybody with the name Abdul or Ahmed or Mohammed,” said conservative talk radio host Mike Gallagher on Fox News last week.

But when David Gregory asked former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden on Meet The Press today if we are “effectively ethnically profiling” potential terrorism suspects, Hayden pushed back against the idea of ethnic profiling as a solution:

HAYDEN: I’m not quite sure the context in which you’re asking the question David about ethnically profiling, but with regard to intelligence…

GREGORY: Isn’t there a profile of who we think the terrorists are?

HAYDEN: Of course there is, but it’s based more on behavior. I mean, for example, the individual in question here, Abdulmutallab, I mean he would not have automatically fit a profile if you were standing next to him in the visa line at Dulles, for example. So it’s the behavior that we’re attempting to profile. And it’s the behavior, these little bits and pieces of information that were in the databases that we didn’t quite stitch together at this point in time. But it wasn’t a question of ethnicity or religion. Those are contributing factors, but it’s what people do that we should be paying attention to.

Unsatisfied, Gregory pressed his point to former Bush Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, saying that counterterrorism officials have told him that religion and ethnicity are more than “contributing factors” because “90 percent” of “these terrorists” are “Islamic males between the ages of 20 and 30.”

But Chertoff pushed back, arguing that “relying on preconceptions or stereotypes is actually kind of misleading and arguably dangerous.” Chertoff noted that al Qaeda has intentionally recruited people “who don’t fit the stereotype.” Watch it:

Earlier this week, Chertoff told NPR that Abdulmutallab’s case “illustrates the danger and the foolishness of profiling because people’s conception of what a potential terrorist looks like often doesn’t match reality.” “I think it’s not only problematic from civil rights’ standpoint, but frankly,” Chertoff said, “I think it winds up not being terribly effective.”