INS Seeks Law Enforcement Aid in Crackdown
Move Targets 300,000 Foreign Nationals Living in U.S. Despite Deportation
Orders


By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 6, 2001; Page A25
U.S. immigration authorities announced yesterday that they have enlisted the
help of law enforcement agencies in a crackdown on more than 300,000 foreign
nationals who have remained in the country illegally after they were ordered
deported.
James W. Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
said the names of as many as 314,000 such foreigners would be entered in a
national FBI crime database so police can help identify them. Previously,
the government did not pursue most people who ignored orders to leave the
country.
Ziglar said the move was part of an effort to tighten domestic enforcement
of immigration laws, an area of concern for lawmakers since the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
"This isn't a sweep" of illegal immigrants, Ziglar said. These are "people
who have been on the lam, who have been accorded due process," he told a
U.S. Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
The order applies to foreigners who were in the United States illegally and
have either skipped their deportation hearings -- resulting in an order to
leave the country -- or turned up to receive deportation orders but
subsequently vanished while out on bond.
Their names will be placed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center
database, a list of millions of records consulted by more than 80,000 law
enforcement agencies ranging from local police to the Secret Service.
The new measure would allow even a local police officer writing a traffic
ticket to determine that a violator is subject to a deportation order.
Previously, only foreign nationals sought on criminal charges, as opposed to
immigration violations, were entered into the FBI database.
INS spokesman Joe Karpinski said that local or state police who discovered
deportees would turn them over to the INS, which would return them to their
home countries. He estimated the new system would lead to the discovery of
up to 10 percent of the missing deportees each year. The rest, he
acknowledged, might manage to stay in the country undetected.
Karpinski said it would take about a year to gather the names of as many as
314,000 people from INS offices and log them into the FBI database.
Ziglar's announcement represented a shift for the INS, which has devoted
little attention to people, known as "absconders," who disappear after
deportation orders. Spokesmen said the agency has lacked the staff to go
after many of the 7 million to 8 million undocumented immigrants in the
United States, and has focused on a few high-priority groups, mainly
criminals and immigrant smugglers.
Some of the hundreds of thousands of "absconders" disappeared after
receiving a final deportation notice, which is known in immigrant
communities as a "run letter" because that is what it prompts many to do.
But enforcement has been so limited that many deportees do not bother
hiding, said Susan F. Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of
International Migration at Georgetown University.
"They don't even run anymore. They know the INS won't go to their house to
pick them up," she said.
Ziglar said his announcement was not part of the government's anti-terrorism
campaign, but instead was aimed at making the INS "more effective." Still,
it comes after alarm from legislators over the government's lax enforcement
of immigration laws. Three of the 19 men blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist
strikes had stayed in the United States illegally beyond the limits imposed
by their visas.
Ben Ferro, an immigration consultant and retired INS district director, said
the crackdown was long overdue.
"Up until now, the INS had placed these absconders in the lowest possible
priority," Ferro said. "It's courageous because he [Ziglar] is going to
catch some flak over this" as people are removed from jobs, homes and
families and sent back to their native countries.
Even some pro-immigration activists seemed unfazed. "What's important to
know about these folks [is], they did have their day in court," said Angela
Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, a Washington
group. "In the post-September 11th context, we've seen a lot of people's
constitutional rights trampled on. It's those people I'm much more worried
about."

Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company






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