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American Morning

The Big Question: Can the INS Be Fixed?

Aired March 18, 2002 - 07:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The big question this hour: Can the INS be fixed? Even before last week's visa fiasco with clearance notices for two 9/11 hijackers arrived at a Florida flight school, the agency in charge of tracking millions of immigrants had a reputation for its bureaucratic blunders. And now, some members of Congress are saying it's time to dismantle the entire agency.

On Capitol Hill tomorrow, the embattled leader of the INS will be on the Senate hot seat. INS Commissioner James Ziglar joins us this morning from the Justice Department -- good morning.

JAMES ZIGLAR, INS COMMISSIONER: Good morning, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Well, this has to be a huge, perhaps the most paramount embarrassment for the INS in recent years, being able to distribute student visas to two dead 9/11 hijackers last Monday, all of this taking place on the six-month mark of the 9/11 tragedies. You have classified this as a breakdown in communication. But that explanation is not sitting well with a number of members of Congress. How do you explain this to happen?

ZIGLAR: Well, this was an inexcusable blunder. The visas for these two fellows were actually issued back in July and August of last year. The paperwork that confirmed, in effect sent a receipt to Huffman Aviation was what was not intercepted and should have been intercepted after the events of September 11.

What this does is it points out, though, that we have a 35,000 person agency in which I can only appoint six people. The Congress withdrew our ability to fire people a couple of years ago. We have an agency that is antiquated technology. We have an agency that has overly bureaucratic processes.

The president, the attorney general and I sent up to the Congress last November a reform plan which would split the service and the enforcement side of this agency, so that we can focus on both of those and do a better job. That plan is still sitting in Congress.

But in the meantime, we have been taking significant actions to reform this agency. For example, in the student area, we are implementing a student tracking system that will track students from the moment they get here until the moment they leave, make sure they go to school, make sure they are taking the courses that they signed up to take. We are changing the regulations, so that no student can start at the school they are going to until they have gotten all of the approvals from us and the State Department and others.

We also are changing the regulations, so that no one can come in on a visitor's visa and then try to change their status to a student unless they indicate when they come in on that visitor visa that they are going to change their status. We are doing the background checks through the law enforcement databases throughout the government on students.

And by the way, we do that on everybody now that comes into the United States. Before I got here, we didn't do that, and we now do it on all 550 million people that cross our borders every year. So we are making...

WHITFIELD: Well, Mr. Ziglar, there are a number of leaders on Capitol Hill, who are saying that much more needs to be done. In fact, many are asking for -- calling for the INS to be dismantled altogether. Attorney General John Ashcroft said last week that he wants to fire -- he wants the power, he wants Capitol Hill to give him the power to fire some individuals.

Let's hear what James Sensenbrenner said last week on this program, judiciary chairman of the House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: Well, it is my intention to schedule hearings and a committee vote on my bill to abolish the INS as we know it next month after Congress returns from the Easter recess. We had hoped to do this last fall. But when I scheduled a hearing and asked Commissioner Ziglar to testify on it, he submitted his testimony late, and I had to cancel the hearing. And this is just typical of everything that the INS does.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And tomorrow, you will be testifying. How do you respond to those charges?

ZIGLAR: Well, the question about abolishing the INS, the INS needs to be reformed fundamentally. Abolishing the INS is not going to change the fact that there are functions that have to be performed by an agency. Changing the name of the INS is not going to fix that problem. Reforming the INS at the very root by breaking it into two bureaus, a service bureau and an enforcement bureau, and having a clear chain of command, having clear accountability, those are the reasons that we -- those are the things that we need to do to reform the INS, especially on that enforcement side. We need to have a strong focus on securing the American people from that minute number of people that want to come into this country and to do harm to this country. But remember...

WHITFIELD: James...

ZIGLAR: ... we have 550 million people that come across our borders every year.

WHITFIELD: INS Commissioner James Ziglar, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

ZIGLAR: Thank you.

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