Ridge urges Congress to keep INS intact in new department

Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge urged Congress Wednesday not to split apart the Immigration and Naturalization Service as it works to create a new Department of Homeland Security.

"To make the system work, the right hand of enforcement must know what the left hand of visa application and processing is doing at all times," Ridge told the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to an Associated Press report.

The House voted in April to break the INS into separate agencies that would deal with border security and citizenship applications. On the day before that vote, the White House announced its support for splitting the agency.

Prior to that, the Bush administration had said it preferred to allow the INS to move forward with its own internal reorganization without Congress' input. At the same time, however, Ridge's office was exploring the idea of consolidating INS enforcement operations with those of other border security agencies.

Ridge indicated at the Senate hearing that not only had the administration shifted back to its position of opposing an INS split, but wanted to keep all of the other agencies it has proposed to move into the new department intact, too. Several of those agencies, such as the Coast Guard, have missions that are unrelated to homeland security.

"To try to segregate and separate them would not guarantee the kind of reform and improvement we would all seek," Ridge told the Senate panel.

Later Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee members urged the Bush administration to ensure that the INS is reformed, regardless of whether the agency ultimately is incorporated into the Homeland Security Department.

At a hearing, subcommittee chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., noted, "Reshuffling the agency is not a panacea. A failure to address poor information sharing, inefficient management or insufficient resources would do little to improve the security of the American people. Simply put, reorganization without reform will not work."

Kennedy and others on the panel also expressed special concern that the INS' service functions, already a "stepchild" of the agency, would be further weakened if transferred to a security department that has "as its principal task to prevent terrorism."

However, it would be difficult to transfer the agency's enforcement functions without also uprooting its service role, Kennedy said. As such, it makes more sense for the INS' dual functions to stay together, he said.

Kennedy said he and subcommittee ranking member Sam Brownback, R-Kan., already have introduced comprehensive legislation to reform the INS. He still sees the need for reform along those lines, regardless of whether the agency's location is changed.

"We've already put forward a proposal for reform, and it does not make sense to move a agency lock, stock and barrel [without reform]," said Brownback. "It needs to be fixed before it goes anywhere."

While commending the Bush administration for its effort to organize a security agency and agreeing it is a "time-sensitive" mission, Brownback warned, "We have to be careful that in our urgency ... we get it right."