House Judiciary Committee Approves INS Reconfiguration Bill
WASHINGTON, April 10–Nearly a month after the Immigration and Naturalization Service approved student visas for two Sept. 11 suicide terrorists, the House Judiciary Committee yesterday approved a bill that would split the beleaguered agency into two separate bureaus, one for law enforcement and one for services such as handling citizenship applications.
The committee agreed almost unanimously, 32-2, to send the bill to the House floor. Congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., voted for the bill.
Mr. Frank, the second-leading Democrat on the committee, supported the bill primarily, he said, because its enactment would be likely to open the door to other pieces of legislation that would reform deportation policy, an issue affecting many New Bedford residents. “In other words, with this bill, there [would] be a better framework to take up some other things, like deportation,” he said.
Judiciary Committee chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., a sponsor of the Immigration Reform and Accountability Act, said at Tuesday’s hearing on the legislation that Congress can no longer accept internal reorganizations of the INS, a Justice Department agency. “The agency operates in constant crisis management mode, responding to error after mishap, with no coherent strategy of how to accomplish its law enforcement or services missions successfully,” he said. “Even when INS headquarters develops a strategy, it is ignored out in the field. It has become clear to me that yet another internal tinkering of the boxes is not going to solve the systemic problems that exist.”
During yesterday’s bill markup, he offered a similar sentiment. “One of the problems with the current INS is different interpretations of the same law,” he said. “Different strokes for different folks.”
Mr. Sensenbrenner also said he was pleased with the bipartisan support of the bill, a rare occurrence in that committee.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is expected to propose his own INS overhaul bill in the Senate sometime in the next week.
INS Commissioner James Ziglar, a witness at Tuesday’s hearing, said the House measure lacks the accountability of an INS reorganization proposal put forth by the Bush administration. The House bill proposes that a new Agency for Immigrant Affairs be created to replace the INS. It would be headed by a new associate attorney general for immigrant affairs, to whom the directors of the service bureau and the enforcement bureau would report. The legislation would also create an office of ombudsman reporting directly to the associate attorney general and Congress.
The Bush administration has proposed a streamlined chain of command at the INS with an organizational structure resembling a corporate model and without the addition of the associate attorney general position. Like the House measure, the administration plan would divide the enforcement and service bureaus and create a new chief information officer, whose responsibility would be to ensure effective integration and coordination of data systems of mutual interest to the service and enforcement bureaus, and a new chief financial officer, responsible for ensuring sound fiscal management.
“A key element of the restructuring is to provide clarity of function by improving accountability and professionalism through a clear and understandable chain of command with specific expertise at all levels,” Mr. Ziglar said.
Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge has also proposed that the Border Patrol, one of the INS’s enforcement units, be merged with the Treasury Department’s Customs Service and assigned to the Justice Department.
Congressman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., one of the two dissenting votes on the Judiciary Committee, cautioned patience. “I am a harsh critic of the INS,” she said, “but [Mr. Ziglar] was on the job for only 36 days before Sept. 11, so we should give him the chance to get things done. If he can’t, replace him. We ought to give him the tools, and let him get the job done.”
Not everyone outside the Capitol Beltway is championing the INS reconfiguration plans. Helena Marques of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center of New Bedford said it targeted undocumented residents, forcing them to “work under the table.”
“I think it will force a lot of those that are undocumented to return to their countries where they come from,” she said, “or it will be difficult for them to survive in the U.S. It will create even more problems in this community.”
Ms. Marques agreed that an overhauled INS would be more accountable and better organized – she said many New Bedford residents’ citizenship applications are often lost within the agency. “I’m very cautious, though, because I never know how it [will affect those that are undocumented],” she said. “I’m a little skeptical.”
Eva Millona, naturalization policy director for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy, said that though her group has a good working relationship with the INS, she believes reform is needed. “Yet it must be manageable and capable of responding effectively to repair the current system,” she said.
Splitting the agency into two smaller bureaus makes sense on a local level, she said, but added that Congress needed to ensure a united agency nationally. “If, in due course, Congress decides to separate law enforcement and service, it should require coordination between the two functions to ensure a unified immigration policy,” Ms. Millona said. “There is a need to share information systems. A shared database system is crucial.”
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
