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PLAN FOR DEPORTATION OF TORTURERS DISCUSSED IN HOUSE IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE
At a time when US refugee and asylum policy is coming under increasing criticism for its perceived political overtones, the House Immigration Subcommittee has turned to a bill that would create new grounds for exclusion and deportation of refugees and asylum seekers – those who have engaged in torture.  
Prompted by the discovery of Carl Dorelien, once the chief of personnel of a 7000 member army that seized power from the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1999 and killed as many as 4000 civilians, Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) proposed the Anti-Atrocity Alien Deportation Act.  Dorelien came to the US after the army he led was forced from power, where he settled in a resort community in Florida that happens to be in Foley’s district.  In 1997, he won .2 million in the Florida lottery, and drew new attention to himself and his past.  
Foley’s bill, along with making torture a basis for exclusion and deportation, would also make the Office of Special Investigations, adivision of the Justice Department that, since 1979, has investigated participants in Nazi atrocities living in the US, responsible for investigating claims of torture, and would provide permanent funding for the Office.  
At the hearing, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice expressed the Department’s overall approval of the bill and mentioned only a few reservations.  First, the Department feels the bill is too limited in covering only torture, and would expand it to cover other types of human rights abuses, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Second, the Department does not believe the authority of the Office of Special Investigations should be broadened.  Rather, the Justice Department would rely on the INS, and let the OSI expire after there are no more Nazis.  
The president of International Educational Missions, Inc., a group that calls attention to human rights abusers living in the US, disagreed over whether the INS should be given authority to enforce this new bill, pointing to the success of the Office of Special Investigations.  Until the OSI was established, the INS had removed only one Nazi from the US.  In contrast, since its creation in 1979, the OSI has deported 52 Nazi war criminals.  Along with this success rate, the potential break-up of the INS was also cited as a reason to put the OSI in charge of enforcement.