Senator urges INS not to punish whistleblowers

A key lawmaker Friday expressed concern that the Immigration and Naturalization Service was disciplining two senior employees for speaking out about lax border security after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Despite the findings of the Office of Special Counsel and the Justice Department inspector general that INS should not retaliate against the agents, it is my understanding that the Border Patrol and INS now plan to proceed with their original disciplinary action against the two agents," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a March 28 letter to INS Commissioner James Ziglar.

Last fall, the INS suspended and demoted Border Patrol agents Mark Hall and Robert Lindemann, who work in the agency's Detroit office, for speaking to the news media after Sept. 11 about alleged security breaches on the nation's northern border. The agency put the disciplinary procedures on hold when the Justice Department inspector general began investigating the matter in November.

The INS issued a statement Thursday saying it would be "inappropriate" to discuss issues that are "the subject of an ongoing personnel action." The agency "does not prohibit employees from speaking to the media and does not discipline employees simply for talking to the media," the statement said.

In February, the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates allegations of whistleblower retaliation, concluded that the INS had retaliated against Hall and Lindemann for speaking to the news media. The agents, who serve on Local 2499 of the National Border Patrol Council, talked to the press in their capacity as union leaders when they were off duty. The Border Patrol, which is part of the INS, had restricted employees from speaking to the news media after Sept. 11, according to a Justice Department report released earlier this month.

The report stopped short of saying the INS had retaliated against the two agents, but said it "seriously questions the decision to propose discipline against Hall and Lindemann, and believes it would not be upheld [in court]."

Grassley criticized the INS for acting against the two agents but failing to discipline senior executives involved in recent controversies at the agency. "It is clear from recent snafus that the INS needs more whistleblowers who expose security problems that have been ignored by the bureaucrats," said Grassley. "Instead, the INS and Border Patrol have chosen to retaliate against those who spotlight problems and mismanagement."

The INS reassigned four top officials this month after an INS contractor sent out letters confirming the agency's approval of student visas for alleged Sept. 11 terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi to attend a Venice, Fla., flight school. The agency also reassigned an official working in a Norfolk, Va., office who recently allowed a group of Pakistanis into the country without proper documentation.

The two incidents prompted President Bush to order a sweeping review of INS operations.