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Ins split { April 25 2002 }

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   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43209-2002Apr24.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43209-2002Apr24.html

President Backs House Bid to Split INS
White House Shift on Legislation Surprises Agency Officials, Others

By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 25, 2002; Page A01


The Bush administration said yesterday that it will support a House bill that would dismantle the Immigration and Naturalization Service and split it into two agencies, a major shift for the White House, which had hoped to revamp the agency administratively.

The administration's announcement came less than 24 hours before the House was scheduled to vote on the bill, proposed by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), which has overwhelming support among House members.

"I think the administration saw the merits of the proposal," Sensenbrenner, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said at a news conference yesterday. "The bill is going to pass with a huge bipartisan vote."

One administration official said the change of heart was prompted in part by the continued bungling on the part of the INS, long excoriated on Capitol Hill for a seemingly endless series of expensive blunders.

Mailings last month to a Florida flight school confirming the student visas of two of the dead Sept. 11 hijackers and the disappearance of four Pakistani crew members who jumped ship in Norfolk after a mistake by an official compounded the problems and inflamed the anger of lawmakers over the slow pace of INS reform. "The writing was on the wall for this bill," the official said.

The administration's restructuring plan would have broken up the INS into a bureau responsible for enforcing immigration law and another for helping immigrants with a variety of services. Both units would have reported to INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar.

The Sensenbrenner bill, however, would assign the enforcement and service functions to two separate agencies to be overseen by a presidentially appointed associate attorney general.

In both cases, the INS -- or its remnants -- would remain within the Justice Department. Until yesterday, the administration had been urging lawmakers to give Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and Ziglar time to work out the restructuring administratively.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush supports the Sensenbrenner bill, although he said the administration will push for some improvements as the measure moves through the House.

"The president believes we need to strengthen our enforcement while at the same time making America more welcoming of new immigrants," McClellan said. "This legislation meets both those priorities."

White House officials described the decision as the fulfillment of a promise made during Bush's presidential campaign, when he vowed to propose legislation to divide the INS into two agencies. But the officials acknowledged that the White House recently had been emphasizing support for administrative remedies rather than legislation, in part because those changes could be made faster.

Sensenbrenner said yesterday that congressional intervention is the only way to reform the INS, which has been restructured nine times since 1979 but continues to have myriad problems, including backlogs in the processing of applications. Five million visa petitions and naturalization applications are pending.

"The INS cannot internally restructure itself," Sensenbrenner said. "Only an act of Congress can do that."

The legislation may, however, encounter opposition in the Senate, where Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) released a statement yesterday saying that he was "surprised" by White House support for the Sensenbrenner bill because "I know the Administration shares my view that significant problems continue to exist with that bill." Kennedy plans to introduce his own legislation for separating the INS's service and enforcement functions.

Ziglar, whose job could be in jeopardy if the Sensenbrenner bill becomes law, was in Australia and could not be reached for comment yesterday. He has said that he supports keeping enforcement and services under a single agency.

An INS official said the administration's decision to back the Sensenbrenner bill was a surprise. "Nobody knew," the official said. "This just caught everybody off guard. We're just all stunned."

T.J. Bonner, president of the U.S. Border Patrol Council, said the union representing border officers has not endorsed any of the INS restructuring plans, but he said that the "separation of enforcement and service is something we strongly support."

Ashcroft, who called a hastily arranged news conference yesterday with Sensenbrenner to announce his support for the bill, failed to show up. Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for Ashcroft, said that "we just weren't able to work it out," adding that the attorney general has scheduled another news conference for today.

The announcement was hailed by critics who believe that dismantling the INS, rather than merely restructuring it, is necessary to improve border security and the enforcement of immigration limits. It was also welcomed by some groups that have criticized the Bush administration for pursuing ways to make it easier for Mexican nationals to work legally in the United States.

But Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration rights group, said yesterday's announcement "leaves us scratching our head."

"Just last week, Ashcroft and Ziglar were standing there with a detailed plan from the administration, and the week before that they didn't have a plan," she said. "What this means is that they don't want to be on the sidelines as the debate moves forward."

Staff writers Mike Allen and Dan Eggen contributed to this report.




© 2002 The Washington Post Company


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