Letters

Your story about the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("Ties That Bind," November) accurately reflects both the chaos and resultant paralysis now dominating ICE. As a legacy Customs agent, I am appalled at this state of affairs. It is clear that the people who created ICE did not understand the missions of the agencies now comprising the agency. This critical failure will continue to haunt ICE until the professionals, not the politicians, are allowed to call the shots on what is best for the Homeland Security Department.

We can't function because the budget codes we've been given don't work. We can't properly investigate because nobody knows whether we are doing Customs work, INS work, or-as the article quoted a veteran Customs agent-we are a revamped INS with a sex crimes unit.

We cannot do the job if we don't have a clear mission.

Yes, Congress said the INS was incompetent and dysfunctional. If so, why was Customs sacrificed on the altar of INS' incompetence?

Name withheld by request

ICE has failed to give us a corporate identity. Try explaining to the public that you are from ICE when your badge says Customs or INS.

We are prone to additional confusion when we are told that as a Homeland Security Department agency, we are to give investigative priority to investigations such as those targeting Canadian telemarketers victimizing senior citizens. This is presented to us as a "serious threat to the homeland," yet we have no investigative priority targeting terrorism.

Who are we, and why are we here?

Name withheld by request

Also, Customs agents have always looked at the larger picture regarding drug organizations and targeted the higher echelons accordingly. The Drug Enforcement Administration routinely targeted the street and local dealers. DEA's successes combating larger drug targets usually came after it joined ongoing Customs investigations.

Name withheld by request

I did not ask for this merger with ICE, but the constant whining and complaining from former Customs special agents about having to work with former INS agents and enforce their laws is getting a little old.

As a former INS agent, I have worked complex alien smuggling/harboring cases involving Eastern Europeans and foreign nationals from many different countries.

Former Customs agents aren't the only ones that have the lock on real law enforcement backgrounds or that "real cop" genre. Many INS agents are former police officers devoted to real law enforcement work, such as tracking down INS fugitives, prosecuting alien firearms violators, fraudulent document vendors, sexual predators, etc. Internet kiddie porn may be an important societal problem, but that's not the primary reason I swore an oath to carry a badge and gun.

I bet you the typical legacy INS special agent prosecuted more felons in federal court in one year than some legacy Customs agents have prosecuted during a 20-year career.

I hope future articles will be more balanced with feedback from legacy INS agents, not just unhappy Customs agents. We don't like the merger either.

Special Agent
Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement

"Systems thinking" is a great catch phrase that will have little impact on policies, programs and implementation in day-to-day practice ("The Big Picture," October). However, the linear cause-and-effect model has been codified in the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act and its progeny, including the Office of Management and Budget's Program Assessment Rating Tool.

As long as executives are constrained by those legislative mandates, it will be very difficult to apply "systems thinking" in the design, execution, management and evaluation of federal programs because the political process demands measurable results from this year's budget by Sept. 30 2004.

Dana Broach
Federal Aviation Administration

The November article "Ties That Bind" incorrectly stated the name of Abdurahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim activist who has been indicted on charges of aiding terrorist groups.