CONGRESS AGAIN CONSIDERING BREAKUP OF INS

One of the most hotly contended immigration issues in the current Congress is a recently introduced plan to break up the INS and divide its enforcement and adjudications functions between two different agencies.

Republican Hal Rogers of Kentucky, along with House Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Texas Democrat Silvestre Reyes, introduced H.R. 2528, a bill that would split the INS into two agencies – a Bureau of Immigration Services and a Bureau of Immigration Enforcement. One agency would oversee immigration applications like citizenship and green card petitions. The other would focus on deportations and border enforcement.

According to Rogers, the bill already has 57 cosponsors, half of whom are Democrats. Rogers and other supporters of the bill say that the INS is an agency in crisis that is unable to repair itself. According to Rogers, "We are fed up with the incompetence of the INS. With its record of monumental failures, the agency has proven that it cannot carry out both admissions."

There seem to be few defenders of the INS. Anti-immigration forces complain that the agency has failed to stop most illegal immigration. Pro-immigration advocates accuse the INS of a meltdown in handling basic legal immigration processing. Even the INS admits it has fundamental problems and is proposing its own plan to reorganize.

There seems to be one major point of agreement in this debate. Most immigration critics and supporters seem to favor the concept of a split of the enforcement and adjudication functions. How this division should take place is where the divisions are set.

Though this bill has some bipartisan support, most of the major immigration advocacy organizations have expressed serious reservations with the proposed legislation. According to groups like the National Immigration Forum and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Rogers bill has fundamental flaws including the following:

• the bill fails to provide for a single high-level person at the top to ensure one accountable voice on enforcement and adjudication so conflicting messages on policy matters from warring bureaucracies are likely to result.
• The bill does not mandate the sharing of resources between the enforcement and adjudications arms

• The bill is silent on funding for adjudications and could result in even worse service for immigrants

Frank Sharry, director of NIF, argues that the bill would "cripple services, eviscerate accountability and even weaken enforcement."

AILA and the NIF are instead working in favor of bills in Congress that would internally divide the INS into enforcement and adjudications hierarchies overseen by a single authority. They are also pushing for provisions to ensure adequate funding for adjudications. The Clinton Administration appears to favor this approach.

The public will no doubt have difficulty deciding which way to go on this issue. Rogers and Smith, not normally known for being pro-immigrant, have secured support from several Democrats in the pro-immigrant camp. They are emphasizing the need to improve INS backlogs and they are actively courting grassroots immigrant organizations for support. But it is difficult to trust Lamar Smith’s intentions and many are left wondering if this is this a Trojan Horse?

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