New York Times - 03.15.2002

 

The New York Times

Agency Finds Itself Under Siege, With Many Responsibilities and Many Critics

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, March 14 — The Immigration and Naturalization Service is one of the government's fastest-growing agencies, and, perhaps, the most fouled up.

It has antiquated computers, staggering paperwork backlogs and sharply conflicting mandates. It is responsible for policing thousands of miles of border with Canada and Mexico, but it is also charged with providing benefits to millions of the country's newest residents.

The letter that was received this week by a Florida flight school approving student visas for Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, two dead Sept. 11 hijackers, is just an example of the kind of mishaps that have angered politicians from both parties and sparked renewed demands that the agency be overhauled, if not abolished.

"It's a given that the agency needs to be reformed, the question is how," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of National Council of La Raza, a Latino rights organization.

The Bush administration and House Republicans believe that the agency's functions must be separated to improve efficiency and accountability. But they sharply disagree about the solution.

Mr. Bush said on Wednesday that the commissioner of immigration and naturalization, James W. Ziglar, should be given a chance to fix his agency's problems.

"He's held accountable," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Ziglar. "His responsibility is to reform the I.N.S. Let's give him time to do so."

But Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said the agency was broken beyond repair.

Mr. Sensenbrenner has proposed replacing the immigration service with two new bureaus within the Justice Department, one to patrol the borders and another to administer benefits to immigrants.

"Every immigration commissioner has tried restructuring the agency and things have only gotten worse rather than better," Mr. Sensenbrenner said today.

Mr. Sensenbrenner has scheduled a committee hearing for April 9 on his legislation to split up the agency, to be followed the next day by a committee vote. He said he would send the bill to the House floor for a vote soon after. The White House opposes the measure.

The House bill faces an uphill struggle in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Mr. Ziglar was the popular sergeant-at-arms before accepting the immigration service job.

Even some of the agency's staunchest critics question whether breaking it up would solve its problems.

"Dividing the I.N.S.'s responsibilities between two separate agencies would result in smaller enforcement and service agencies, each with a clearer, more focused mission," Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general said in October. "However, separating the I.N.S. into two agencies might merely compound the deficiencies in the agency's management controls, systems and accountability."

Splitting the agency could also hamper coordination between its service and enforcement sides, critics of the move argue.

"Sensenbrenner's bill creates problems of overlap and duplication," said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "In his bill, for instance, each branch would have its own legal counsel. It doesn't make sense."

Since Sept. 11, immigration officials said, the agency had taken several steps to increase the scrutiny of foreigners entering the United States.

The agency is working more closely with the Treasury Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation to track possible terrorists. Inspectors at ports and other border crossings now have access to the State Department's consular database to prevent visa fraud.

To crack down on foreigners who remain in the country despite deportation orders, Mr. Ziglar has ordered that the names 314,000 criminal aliens be entered into the F.B.I.'s database so that local police can identify them. The effort could take up to a year.

But the immigration service still has no idea how many foreign students have overstayed or violated their visas — despite a 1996 law requiring a tracking system for the 547,000 people holding student visas.

A computer network to track foreign students in the country is still being tested and is not expected to be fully operational until next year. Congress also bears some responsibility for the delay. Education groups opposed to the measure twice persuaded lawmakers to postpone the start of the system.

A 1996 law also required the immigration system to create a system that would record every time a foreigner entered and exited the country. Lawmakers later retreated from the demand after business leaders expressed concerns about long traffic lines at major border crossings, like the one Detroit shares with Windsor, Ontario.

The system is intended to help track down foreigners who overstay their legal visas. About 40 percent of the estimated eight million illegal immigrants in the country stayed on after their travel, student or business visas lapsed.

But the immigration service has only about 1,700 agents to enforce immigration laws within the nation, compared to about 10,000 border patrol agents who watch the frontiers.

To help combat terrorism, President Bush has asked Congress to increase the immigration agency's budget by about 13 percent to $6.3 billion next year. The agency would grow to 37,000 employees, including 1,800 more border patrol agents and immigration inspectors.

The burden for enhancing the agency's border duties as well as its role as Welcome Wagon falls to Mr. Ziglar, 56, who had a reputation as a strong manager from his days at Paine Webber — but no experience in immigration issues.

The administration and Mr. Ziglar set a goal to process all claims for permanent residency within six months of receiving the claims. Officials said the goal was to meet that national average by this October, and for all regional offices to meet it by the end of the 2003 fiscal year.

Critics say that Congress must share some blame for the agency's woes. The cost of providing services to immigrants is mostly covered by user fees, not appropriated funds. But the immigration service must get Congress's approval before it can spend that money, a process that often takes weeks or months.

In recent years, lawmakers have added programs for the agency to administer without adequately staffing or financing them, critics said.

"What Congress could do is simplify the law, and curb its appetite for new programs that divert energies," said David A. Martin, a former general counsel for the immigration service who now teaches law at the University of Virginia.

Finally, legislation that would give the immigration service access to information from the Central Intelligence Agency as well as require tamper-resistant visas passed the House this week, but has been held up in the Senate.

"We cannot continue to tolerate a flawed information collecting and tracking system that allows potential terrorists to enter or remain in the United States," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, a sponsor of the bill.