The Immigration and Naturalization Service would be split into two agencies under a bill introduced in the House Thursday.
The Immigration Reorganization and Reform Act of 1999 would give one agency control over keeping illegal aliens out of the country and give a second organization responsibility for naturalizing new citizens. Similar proposals have floated around for years-sponsors of this year's bill introduced the same legislation in the last Congress.
"The INS has simply failed," Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., a cosponsor of the legislation, said at a press conference Thursday. "The typical INS experience for the public is one of long bureaucratic waits, lost applications and files and sometimes lack of courteous service. Secondly the U.S. border is a sieve and those who sneak into the country have little fear of deportation."
The measure would replace INS with two separate agencies within the Justice Department: the Bureau of Enforcement and the Bureau of Immigration Services. The head of each agency would report to the deputy attorney general.
Rogers and co-sponsors Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said the enforcement bureau would be headed by an official with extensive law enforcement and management experience, while the immigration services bureau would be led by a director with extensive benefits processing experience.
INS officials say the agency's services and enforcement sides should be kept under the same roof. The agency has developed its own restructuring plan that would create separate chains of command for the services and enforcement branches within the INS management structure.