Living in terror's shadow: Gannett News Service special report

WASHINGTON — The Immigration and Naturalization Service had a reputation as inefficient and inept even before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Critics of the agency note that the INS consistently has failed to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country and still takes years to process applications from foreigners seeking legal residency.

The agency’s public image was tarnished again when it became clear several Sept. 11 hijackers had remained in the United States on expired visas. Its fate was sealed in March when it issued visa-approval notices on two of the hijackers — six months after the attacks.

Today, nearly a year after the attacks, the INS isn’t just in trouble, it’s about to disappear.

Congress is moving quickly on legislation that would replace the immigration service with two new agencies — one to protect the borders against terrorist threats and one to process paperwork for the millions of foreigners seeking U.S. residency and citizenship. The two immigration agencies would become part of the new Department of Homeland Security that President Bush has proposed.

It is still too early to say whether replacing the INS will solve the problems that have plagued the agency for so long. But groups on each side of the immigration debate — those that want to loosen restrictions on immigration and those that want to tighten it — don’t like what they see so far.

Both sides argue that dismantling the INS without fixing it first won’t make it any more effective in keeping out potential terrorists and welcoming law-abiding foreigners into the country.

The two sides have very different ideas on how INS responsibilities should be restructured as part of creating a new Cabinet department, but they agree that the nation’s immigration policies — not just the INS — must be overhauled.

Members of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports restricting immigration, say the plan to replace the INS offers no ideas on how to reduce the record number of illegal immigrants entering the United States. Nine million illegal immigrants are believed to be in the country, up from 5 million in 1996.

“It’s not that anyone believes a stricter immigration policy would guarantee us from being attacked by foreign terrorists,” said Steven Camarota, the center’s research director. “But the public certainly sees that our immigration system needs to be fixed to reduce the chance of future attacks.”

His group also opposes any attempt to break up the enforcement and service functions that are now part of the INS.

“Reviewing applications from people who want to become residents and citizens are as much national security issues as patrolling the border,” he said.

Groups that favor more relaxed immigration laws disagree. They argue that enforcement and immigration services should remain apart, saying services under a Department of Homeland Security would be shortchanged in funding, much as they are now under the INS.

The INS spends five times more on border patrol agents and other enforcement efforts than it does on processing immigration applications. The result: a backlog of 5 million applications that has forced most legal immigrants to wait years for the INS to make a decision.

“This proposal ... threatens to make the already dismal treatment of immigrants by the federal bureaucracy even worse,” charges Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights group.

Twelve other national pro-immigration organizations — including the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — have joined the NCLR in expressing opposition to breaking up the INS without first fixing what they describe as “a broken agency.”

In a letter to Congress, the groups warn that folding all of the functions now handled by the INS into a new department focused primarily on homeland security “suggests that the United States no longer views immigrants as welcome contributors but as potential threats viewed through a terrorist lens.”

Lawmakers also don’t agree on which immigration functions should go where once the INS is dismantled.

Under legislation the House passed in July, INS enforcement functions, including the U.S. Border Patrol, would move to the new Homeland Security Department. Service-related functions, such as processing residency and citizenship applications, would remain part of the Justice Department.

“INS service problems are legendary, and it is critical to ensure that immigration services are no longer sacrificed in favor of enforcement priorities,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The Senate plans to take up legislation in September that would fold the two INS replacement agencies into the new Homeland Security Department.

The Bush administration prefers the Senate’s approach. At a recent Senate hearing, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge tried to convince lawmakers that all INS responsibilities should be kept under one roof.

“To make the system work, the right hand of enforcement must know what the left hand of visa application and processing is doing at all times,” he said. “An America whose immigration laws are fully enforced is an America that is more tolerant, trusting and welcoming to legal immigrants.”