Lawmaker favors scrapping INS, creating new border security agency

The Immigration and Naturalization Service should be abolished and a new border security agency should take its place, lawmakers said at a press conference Wednesday.

"It appears INS is not getting the message," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told reporters at a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday. "It is clear that if we are going to secure our borders and protect our country, then we must end INS as we know it, and form a new agency that has the ability and the will to enforce the law." Tancredo is the chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.

Tancredo and other lawmakers, including Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., and Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., called for a separate border security agency that would house the enforcement activities of the INS, the current Border Patrol, the Coast Guard and the Customs Service under one director. Currently, the Border Patrol is part of INS, Coast Guard is part of the Transportation Department and Customs falls under the purview of the Treasury Department. Several lawmakers, including Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, favor creating a National Homeland Security Agency that would include Customs, the Border Patrol, Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Lieberman and Thornberry have both introduced legislation calling for a separate agency, but neither has advocated scrapping the INS entirely. Tancredo said the agencies responsible for border security are understandably "confused" about their missions, but criticized the INS for "abandoning their primary role of enforcement" and "not doing the job they were empowered to do." A report issued by the Justice Department's inspector general in March 1998 said that the U.S. border with Canada was an easy crossing point for terrorists. Two of the suspected terrorists in the Sept. 11 attacks are believed to have entered Maine by way of Canada. And law enforcement officials have said that several of the suspected terrorists who entered the U.S. on legal business and travel visas overstayed those visas. "Enforcement is not the INS' goal; they consider themselves to be social workers," Tancredo said, referring to the agency's other mission to provide services to immigrants. The INS welcomes all ideas on how it can do a better job, said Karen Kraushaar, an agency spokeswoman. "Any member of Congress should be listened to and heeded," she said. However, Kraushaar said abolishing the agency is a "drastic solution" that would need to be submitted to all of Congress for consideration. "We would certainly welcome hearing from the committee, if members are of the opinion that such a proposal should be brought forward and reviewed," Kraushaar said. "But that is for them, and not INS, to say." Tancredo said he does not plan to introduce legislation on his proposal in the near future. "The chance of getting a bill on this issue introduced right now is pretty small," he said. Tancredo said he hopes to work closely with the Bush administration in creating the separate border security agency. President Bush proposed splitting the INS into two agencies during the 2000 presidential campaign and last April, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, introduced a bill (H.R. 1562) that would create a bureau of immigration services and a separate bureau for enforcement within INS. But Tancredo said simply splitting the INS in two parts will not solve the problem of lax border security. "Splitting the agency in half doesn't really help the situation because you will still have the same people who view their jobs as antithetical to enforcement," he said. Tancredo said a "deeply entrenched culture" that does not take border security seriously has been allowed to persist at the agency over the years. Tancredo was not concerned about what would happen to agency employees if the INS were abolished. "My job is to make policy; I can't go around worrying about everyone's job," he said. Since Sept.11, INS employees across the countryhave logged in 70,000 hours of overtime each pay period, according to Kraushaar. INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar said last August that he would not split the agency into two separate organizations, but that he hoped to begin restructuring the organization this fall. According to Kraushaar, the agency's restructuring proposal, which has been approved by the White House, is in its final stages and will be rolled out "fairly soon." "The restructuring will be significant, and we look forward to working with members of Congress in reshaping the agency in productive ways," Kraushaar said.