House Agrees to Scrap Immigration Agency
Thu Apr 25, 4:06 PM ET
By Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday
overwhelmingly agreed to abolish the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, which came under fire after the Sept. 11 attacks, and split its
law enforcement and immigrant services functions into two bureaus.
The House voted 405-9 in favor of the legislation, which a top
administration official called a first step toward restructuring the
beleaguered agency and improving inefficient visa and citizenship services.
"We are eager to make sure that the (legislative) outcome serves America
well," Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference before the
bill was passed. "We think to pass this measure today will provide a
pathway for getting that done."
The Bush administration, which had taken the position that legislation was
not needed because the INS was already undergoing administrative
restructuring, threw its support behind the House bill on Wednesday.
But in a statement of policy, the administration said it would seek changes
in the bill. Officials are concerned the authority of a proposed new
associate attorney general to oversee the enforcement and immigrant
services bureaus would be weaker than the current INS commissioner.
While lawmakers have long been critical of the agency one top House member
called "dysfunctional," the INS came under increased criticism after the
Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
All of the 19 suspected hijackers in the attacks that killed about 3,000
people entered the country legally, but three overstayed their visas.
Lawmakers were outraged in March when the INS, six months after the
attacks, sent a Florida flight school notices that it had approved student
visas for two of the hijackers.
The INS came under further fire after four Pakistanis who arrived aboard a
Russian ship on March 16 in Norfolk, Virginia, failed to return to the
vessel before it departed. One has been captured but the other three remain
at large. INS officials have said the men had no links to terrorist or
criminal activities.
NO 'PANACEA'
House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner said the legislation
would be no "panacea" to solve all of the immigration agency's problems,
which he said took years to create. But he said, it was an "essential first
start."
The few opponents of the House bill said it did not go far enough in
solving the problems the immigration agency, which suffers from a huge
backlog of cases and outdated information technology. They also expressed
concern the proposed new immigrant services agency would get fewer
financial resources than the proposed enforcement agency.
Rep. Melvin Watt, a North Carolina Democrat, complained the bill would
create two "inefficient" agencies out of one.
"At the end of the day this bill does nothing," Watt said during the
debate.
In the Senate, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, who heads the
Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee, and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback,
the top Republican on the panel, are preparing an INS reform bill that is
expected to be unveiled next week. The forthcoming Senate bill also would
abolish the current agency and separate its functions into two bureaus
under a new director of immigration affairs.
"Along with the administration, I believe that strong overall leadership
and increased coordination between immigration and enforcement are key to
any good reform measure," Kennedy said in a statement.
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