House committee votes to abolish immigration agency

The House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to replace the beleaguered Immigration and Naturalization Service with two new Justice Department bureaus.

The often-feuding panel joined in an unusual show of bipartisanship by voting 32-2 to approve H.R. 3231, abolishing the agency whose longtime administrative and enforcement problems were underscored by the Sept. 11 suicide skyjackings.

The INS' final straw came last month when the agency sent student-visa renewal notices to two hijackers who died on Sept. 11.

A congressman whose district includes the Venice, Fla., flight school where the hijackers trained as pilots praised the committee's action.

"It's about time," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who does not sit on the committee. "We in Congress have sat back and watched the most bumbling, stumbling agency in all the land screw up case after case with no consequence to itself."

In place of the INS, the Republican-controlled panel voted to create a high-level post in the Justice Department, where an associate attorney general would act as a sort of czar over immigration issues.

Under Justice's jurisdiction, two new major bureaus would be established --one with power over "citizenship and immigration services" and the other over enforcement.

Those bureaus would replace the joint functions performed by the present INS but with new congressional marching orders to straighten out what members called a bureaucratic mess.

For example, the committee chairman, James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said INS had a backlog of 4.9 million applications for visas or other changes to immigration status at the end of fiscal 2001.

The INS has had a long history under different names and structures dating back to the 1800s. The present INS goes back to 1933.

A sweeping restructuring did not please all committee members. Democrats Zoe Lofgren of California and Mel Watt of North Carolina expressed skepticism that the new organization would fare any better than the current INS. They were the only members to vote against the bill--a substitute for the original measure--that was crafted behind closed doors among Republican and Democrats and their staffs.

The substitute measure was approved by voice vote before the bill was sent to the full House for expected approval, along with proposed amendments that will be drafted under an agreement with members who withdrew amendments with the understanding compromises would be worked out later.

The original measure was introduced last November by Sensenbrenner and Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., chairman of the committee's Immigration Subcommittee. The final substitute bill carries their names and those of Democrats John Conyers of Michigan and Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas.

The bill's fate in the Senate is uncertain. President Bush has taken no position on the measure, and some Democrats criticized the administration for not speaking out on what would be a major overhaul of an important federal function.

The committee adopted four non-controversial amendments by voice vote. One, by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., would authorize appropriations to cover fees of refugees and asylum seekers. Another by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., would launch a study on whether to establish permanent interior checkpoints manned by the INS. A Jackson-Lee amendment would require immigration field offices to follow all national office directions consistently. And another by Jackson-Lee called for a study by the Justice Department on what steps would be taken to meet refugee emergencies.

The new bill was called "The Barbara Jordan Immigration Reform and Accountability Act" after the late congresswoman who had headed a commission that made recommendations for INS reform five years ago.