The head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service gave a partial nod to a Senate plan that would abolish the INS and replace it with a new Justice Department agency.
INS chief Doris Meissner said Thursday that she agreed with the Senate's proposal to split the agency's two missions-keeping illegal aliens out of the country and processing legal immigrants-into two bureaus whose chiefs would report to a single immigration policy official at the Justice Department.
"Mission conflict at the local operational level often impedes accountability, and the current bureaucratic chain of command hampers efficiency," Meissner said. "I am and have been working to solve these and other problems, but I cannot fully succeed without the necessary structural changes that will result in a true and meaningful transformation-from a strained structure designed to deal with the smaller and more manageable workload of yesterday to a modern system equipped to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow."
Meissner said she disagrees with some of the details of the Senate proposal, but that in general the Senate plan is in line with a Clinton administration proposal for restructuring the INS.
A House proposal would completely separate the enforcement side of INS from the citizenship processing side. Meissner opposes that proposal on the grounds that it would prevent the executive branch from having coherent immigration policies.
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