The first step in achieving homeland security must be to address and fix problems with our existing agencies and systems. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (now part of the Department of Homeland Security) has already come under fire, and rightly so, for issuing student visas to two of the 9/11 hijackers - seven months after the terrorist attacks.
But the INS's problems go far beyond that. In 1996 and 1997, the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice issued reports documenting systematic failures by the INS to complete its responsibilities in enforcing immigration law.
Yet the INS had not taken any significant action to implement the OIG's recommendations by September 11, 2001. Worse yet, follow-up reports by the OIG in 2002 and 2003 show that the INS has still not improved substantially.
The 1996 and 1997 reports address two parts of the same issue: illegal immigration. To most people, the term "illegal immigration" conjures up images of people sneaking across the border. However 41% of illegal immigrants are overstays: they were legally admitted to the country, but did not depart when they were required to do so.
Everybody who is admitted to the U.S. as a visitor (this includes workers and students) is admitted only temporarily and for a specified purpose. A visitor can change the purpose for which they are present, but must adjust their status with the INS or their presence becomes illegal. And many people simply stay on past the authorized length of their stay.
In order to properly enforce immigration law, the INS must keep track of all temporary visitors and make sure that they properly adjust their status or leave the country. And that is where the INS has failed.
The 1997 report examined the INS's ability to track overstays. It found that the INS had not produced reliable numbers for the previous five years because it only tracked about 15% of entries and exits and estimated the numbers from that, that it did not have a specific program for identifying and dealing with overstays, and that it could not identify individual overstays.
In 2002, the OIG did a follow-up study on the INS and overstays. They found that the INS had not taken effective action in any of the areas mentioned in the original report and all the problems still remained.
The earlier 1996 report focused on the question of removing illegal aliens from the country. It found that the INS successfully deported 94% of those in detention who had been issued final order of removal by immigration judges. However, its rate of success for those who were not already in detention was only 11%. Given that 45% of those issued final order of removal are not in detention, the INS was basically only able to complete half its job.
In 2003, the OIG did a follow-up study. Again, they found that the INS had not taken effective action in any of the areas mentioned. Its success rate at deporting those in detention was 92% and for the non-detained, 13% - essentially the same as seven years earlier.
The 2003 report further notes that although the INS had made criminals its first priority in deportation, it only deported 35% of non-detained aliens with criminal convictions. This seems to represent the best that the INS could do.
Only 6% of those from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism were deported, although the OIG notes that one of the reasons that the figure is so low is difficulty in sending people back to Cuba, which accounted for 35% of the people in question.
The report also looks at the deportation of people who had applied for asylum and were rejected. The reason for this is that several convicted terrorists, including Ramzi Yousef, the original WTC bomber from 1993, had tried to apply for asylum and been rejected.
Overall, the OIG concludes:
We found that it failed to take or complete corrective actions in a timely manner. In several instances, the INS acted to implement our recommendations after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, although it had agreed to act much sooner. [emphasis added]It is important to remember that even if the INS had complied with the OIG recommendations, it probably would not have stopped 9/11, as most of the hijackers were in the country legally. All had entered legally and, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (an anti-immigration group), only five hijackers were overstays. Nonetheless, it is clear that the INS has been and remains incapable of enforcing existing immigration laws. We can pass all the new laws we want but if the INS can't enforce those laws either, they aren't worth the paper they're written on. Until we address the basic foundational weaknesses of the INS, our policy will remain broken.