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Hagel Discusses Homeland Security; Lofgren, Sensenbrenner Debate Immigration Reform

Aired March 16, 2002 - 10:00   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.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was plenty hot, and I made that clear to people in my administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE SNOW, HOST: The commander in chief in the war on terrorism steamed after visas are delivered for the 9/11 terrorists. We'll talk with two key members of the House Judiciary Committee about how a government agency could make such a mistake and how to fix it.

And we'll talk to Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, about the war, homeland defense, and how Congress can advise and coexist with a very popular president.

All just ahead on CNN's SATURDAY EDITION.

Good morning to the West Coast and all of our viewers across North America. I'm Kate Snow in Washington.

In a few minutes, we'll bring you the president's weekly radio address. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska will join us to us listen and react to that. And we'll talk with two additional members of Congress about fixing the nation's immigration agency.

We're also looking for your questions. The address is saturday.edition@cnn.com.

We'll talk with Senator Hagel in just a minute but first, a news alert.

(NEWSBREAK)

SNOW: We're a couple of minutes away from President Bush's radio address, but joining us first is Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel.

Senator Hagel, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

How confident do you think the White House should be,in this war against terrorism right now? SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R,) NEBRASKA: Well, first, I think we need to understand, Kate, we are up against a shadowy, lethal enemy, unprecedented. We have never had to deal with anything quite like this. That's the first thing we must understand.

It seems to me, how we deal with this war on terrorism is much about holding coalitions of friends and allies together. Intelligence, humanitarian, diplomatic, financial, health, environment -- all these pieces are now part of this effort, as, of course, is the military option. But I think we're doing well.

Remember this, too: What we're dealing with here is unprecedented, and that this administration is having to make up this as it goes along.

SNOW: In Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda has been getting a lot of attention. Appears successful but still no sign of Osama bin Laden. How important is it to have him, Osama bin Laden, in hand, before the U.S. thinks about expanding?

HAGEL: Bin Laden is just a part of the overall effort here. He is an important part; we need to find him or kill him or bring him to justice for his part in these September 11 attacks on this country. But this effort is much bigger, wider and deeper than bin Laden. It is about terrorism around the world.

SNOW: Do you see Iraq as the logical next step?

HAGEL: No, I don't. I think Iraq is part of the overall universe of the threats out there against the United States, and they are very destabilizing dynamics certainly in the Middle East. It is part of it, but it is bigger than Iraq, as well.

The thing on Iraq I have always believed and, I think, is more and more important is start at the end, start at the end of the objective. What is the objective? Ask that question. It is not just eliminating or changing Saddam Hussein. The objective is, what comes after Saddam Hussein? Do we further destabilize Iraq by taking him out now? What's the urgency of the threat? What is the alternative? Who and what follows Saddam Hussein?

SNOW: But quickly, don't you think the U.S. is headed in that direction? I mean, the president has made it pretty clear that Saddam Hussein is the next target.

HAGEL: Well, Secretary Powell said, I believe, recently, I think yesterday, that the United States is not about to go to war with Iraq or Iran. We need to look at all of our options. We need to run the diplomatic chain here. We need to make sure our allies are with us.

But fundamentally, we need to ask the question, what comes next? What's the alternative? Who replaces Saddam? What are the opposition forces like? How do we do this with our coalition? The Middle East peace is part of this. We are dealing with many complicating factors here. SNOW: And I know you think the coalition is essential to this, not U.S. going alone unilaterally into Iraq. I want to talk to you a little more about that in just a moment, but first we're going to take a little break.

The president of the United States, President Bush, every week gives his radio address. Let's pause and listen to his address live this morning.

BUSH: Good morning.

In one week, boys and girls in Afghanistan will start a new school year. For many girls, this will be the first time in their young lives that they will have set foot in a classroom. Under the Taliban regime, educating women was a criminal act. Under the new government of a liberated Afghanistan, educating all children is a national priority. And America, along with its coalition partners, is actively helping in that effort.

When Afghan children begin their classes, they will find that the United States has already sent more than 4 million textbooks to their country. The textbooks are written in the Afghan languages of Pashtu and Dari. And before the end of the year, we'll have sent almost 10 million of them to the children of Afghanistan. These textbooks will teach tolerance and respect for human dignity instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry. And they will be accompanied by blackboards, teachers kits and other school supplies.

America's children have been extremely generous in helping the children of Afghanistan. Through America's Fund for Afghan Children, they have raised more than $4.5 million, much of which is used for school supplies like notebooks and pencils, paper and crayons, soccer balls and jump ropes.

The United States will also be funding 20 teams of teacher trainers to conduct training sessions with thousands of Afghan educators.

In helping the Afghan people rebuild their country, we have placed a central focus on education, and for a good reason: Education is the pathway to progress, particularly for women. Educated women tend to be healthier than those who are not well educated, and the same is true of their families. Babies born to educated women more likely to be immunized, better nourished, and survive their first year of life. Educated women encourage their children to be educated as well, and nations whose women are educated are more competitive, more prosperous, and more advanced than nations where the education of women is forbidden or ignored.

We still have a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. The brave men and women of the American military continue to fight Al Qaeda forces that are trying to regroup and would like nothing more than to strike America again.

And even as we fight terror, American compassion is providing an alternative to bitterness, resentment and hatred. The United States has helped Afghanistan avert mass starvation. We're repairing its roads and bridges. We're rebuilding its health clinics and schools.

And in one week, with textbooks in hand, the young girls of Afghanistan will begin school. This will be a remarkable moment in the history of Afghanistan and a proud moment for the people of America.

Thank you for listening.

SNOW: President Bush, in his weekly radio address, talking about what's happening in Afghanistan, some of the U.S. involvement there.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is my guest this morning.

You were talking about the fact that Nebraska has a role in all of this. It's the only -- the University of Nebraska the only place that really studies -- has a big department dedicated to Afghani studies.

What's the role there, and do you think the U.S. is doing enough to help Afghanistan rebuild itself?

HAGEL: Kate, thank you. We are very proud of the University of Nebraska at Omaha's effort there. In fact, we are managing and constructing that educational effort through textbooks and all of the effort that needs to be put together to get that school system on its feet. So, thank you.

I think, overall, like so many of these great challenges, many parallel tracks run at the same time -- education, building infrastructure, developing democratic institutions, allowing Afghanistan an opportunity to form a coalition government through this process, sustain that effort, building an army. Certainly economic development is key to this, jobs. And also the drug issue is a big issue here, and...

SNOW: But none of that is as easy as it sounds.

HAGEL It's huge.

SNOW: Particularly the drug issue. There was a great article this morning in The Washington Post about how difficult that challenge is.

HAGEL: It's complicated, it's of a magnitude that we are rarely see, partly because you have so many different ethnic groups, tribal factions. You have a dangerous part of the world to begin with. You have a cross-section of interests of the great powers. But I think the United States has made tremendous progress.

It will only happen with American leadership. The president, his team deserve a great amount of recognition here for their leadership.

SNOW: Let me go back to the subject of Iraq just for a moment before we go to commercial break, because I want to let you finish your thought on that. You have been critical of the president for using the term "axis of evil," have you not, for Iraq, Iran and North Korea?

HAGEL: Well, I have said that we have to be careful, that words have meaning, and meanings have consequences, expectations, commitments. And we have to remember that when America speaks, every word that we utter means something; it reverberates in ways sometimes we don't see. We need to see the world with a wider lens sometimes, especially look at us, America, from the lens that others look at us through.

And when we talk about axis of evil, it seems to me we want to be careful here, because our role should be to enhance America's position around the world. Certainly, recognize evil, bad people, and we will deal with them. But I think we are better served if we're a little more careful with our verbiage.

SNOW: If other nations don't agree with the U.S. take, though -- in other words, if Vice President Cheney is traveling around the Middle East right now trying to get support for going after Iraq, and if that support is not there, what does that mean? Should we not go into Iraq?

HAGEL: Well, I think it means that we don't have all of the facts and all of the pieces put together here.

I can't believe that there would be any way that the United States would unilaterally attack Iraq. Of course you're going to need the support of Turkey in some of those bases and our allies there. You can't militarily undertake an operation to attack Iraq without our allies, and why would you want to?

We want to always assure that we are on the high ground here -- diplomatic, moral high ground -- on what we're doing. That's why it's important to play out the diplomatic part of this.

We may, in the end, have to take military action against Saddam Hussein, but let's don't put that out first. That is something we can always go to and plan for, as we do. Let's put some other things out first to enhance America's role and have people want to be on our side.

SNOW: We're going to take a quick break. We'll come back. Coming up next, we're going to talk about Congress' wartime agenda. We'll continue our conversation with Senator Hagel. We'll also take your phone calls and e-mails, when SATURDAY EDITION continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: SATURDAY EDITION is back with Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska joining us today.

Thank you, Senator Hagel, for being here.

We have an e-mail that came in that I think is interesting. It's written to you, so I'll ask you the question.

"Senator Hagel, will the government also wage a war against the IRA and the Colombian terrorists, or is it only going to target the Muslim world?" It's from Hassan in Toronto, Canada.

Good question. What about some of these other hot spots in the world, beyond the Middle East and beyond some of these other locations?

HAGEL: Well, it is a very good question. I think the way we answer that is this way. We must define the urgency of the threat, always. We must define the threat.

Certainly what's going on in Colombia, I believe, I think most of us here on Capital Hill believe, is a terrorist effort. It's mixed up with a lot of other factors and dynamics. The IRA in Ireland and some of these long-going and complicated mixtures of activity, very hostile activity toward governments are complicated to sort out.

That's why it's important that, when we talk about terrorism, we talk about what we're going to do and now do, we be careful with that, because meaning in each of these countries is different.

First of all, we're not targeting Muslim countries. That is not the issue here. We are targeting terrorists first, the first phase of this, who attacked this country on September 11.

SNOW: What about spreading too thin, though? I mean, if the U.S. suddenly starts going after terrorists in Ireland and in Colombia, aren't we spreading ourselves too thin?

HAGEL: Well, of course, that is always the question and the concern. Great powers must understand that they too have limitations, and that is the greatest challenge of a great power to understand its limitations. We can't attack the world. We can't attack the world of terrorism and go after all terrorists unilaterally. That was my original point. We need coalitions. We need allies and friends.

And we have to rate these on the urgency of the threat and the definition of that threat and the definition of the terrorists.

This is why the president has said, and he's right, this is a long-term effort, but this is bigger than just the United States. It's going to require essentially all of the civilized world to join together here and work this through.

But each part of this issue in each country and each group always has a little different personality and character to it. And you won't get total agreement on who terrorists are in each country .

SNOW: And in Congress, you won't get total agreement either, I'm sure.

HAGEL: No.

SNOW: Back on homeland defense, and I want to bring it back around to the Congress, Tom Ridge, the director of homeland defense, has refused to testify before Congress. Two of your colleagues, Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens on the Appropriations Committee, the money committee, they want him to come testify. They want a meeting with President Bush to talk about why he's not coming.

Why isn't he coming to testify?

HAGEL: Kate, it's always smart to talk to the money people. That's a given in this business. And I think it would be wise if the administration would allow Governor Ridge to come before the committee and talk.

Listen, there is no one on this committee, Appropriations or anywhere in the Congress, who expects Governor Ridge to detail every dynamic of expenditures and budgets. But after all, the president has put an immense amount of responsibility in the hands of this man, and I think it would do well for our country, serve the purposes of the president, to allow a very articulate, experienced Governor Ridge to explain what the president's mission is, objective. I think he could enhance the position of the president.

So I would support having Governor Ridge come up and talk with us .

SNOW: President Bush was asked at his news conference if he's trying to recalibrate the power between Congress and the presidency by refusing to let homeland security director Tom Ridge to testify and also by refusing to hand over records of the energy task force that Vice President Cheney was running last year.

Mr. Bush said, "Let the legal historians figure all of that out."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I am not going to let Congress erode the power of the executive branch. I have a duty to protect the executive branch from legislative encroachment. I mean, for example, when the GAO demands documents from us, we're not going to give them to them. I mean, it's just, you know -- these were privileged conversations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: Legislative encroachment? He's really taking on the Congress there.

HAGEL: Well, the president is right to some extent. I think there has been an erosion of the executive privilege of the last 25 years.

But here's the additional point to this. This business is also about perception. It's about confidence, it's about trust. I think it is in the interest of this administration to find a way to make some of this happen.

I don't think we want to continually dance on the pinhead of technicality around here. We're all in this together, and if the president wants the cooperation of the Congress, he needs it. We want to follow the president. We know that he is the only one that can lead on these things. And we must work together.

And why build these artificial barriers and walls, "You can't have that, because constitutionally you don't deserve it"?

HAGEL: That isn't wise nor responsible.

SNOW: So you think the president is pushing too hard?

HAGEL: Well, I think, the counsel I'd give the president if he asked -- he's not -- is make a deal on this. Let Congress have some of this information. There is no problem with that. And I think we could work this out.

But again, we are getting distracted here by too much technicality and over-lawyering, I believe. And we can do better than that.

SNOW: Let me ask you about another issue that came up this week, Charles Pickering -- big issue in Senate. He was shot down for an appointment to federal circuit court of appeals, an old friend of Senator Trent Lott from Mississippi, Republican. And he is out of there.

Did Democrats do the wrong thing in taking him on?

HAGEL: Well, I think the Democrats did wrong thing in voting down the nomination. But even worse, I think it was not a smart move, wise move, responsible move, not to allow a vote to happen on the floor of the Senate for Judge Pickering.

SNOW: Listen to what Senator Lott had to say about this incident, about Charles Pickering and Charles Pickering not being allowed a vote. Let's listen to Senator Lott this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: I think this is, you know, payback. The problem with payback is where does it every end? You know, we paid you back, you pay us back. Now we're going pay you back. Where does this end? Is this the way for the United States Senate to act? Is this the process that we should use in confirming judges?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: And Senator Lott saying he is going to block money that the Judiciary Committee wanted, the committee that voted out, voted down Charles Pickering. He's going to block one of Daschle's picks for another appointment. When does it end?

HAGEL: Well, Senator Lott's point was correct. We can't continue to ratchet this up. This is irresponsible. This is no way to govern.

First, I think, let's put perspective on this. As much of a big mistake, I think as the Democrats made here on Pickering, this isn't the first time. It's not going to be last.

I remember in the '70s big fight over Carswell (ph) and Hainesworth (ph), the Supreme Court nominees with Nixon, Clarence Thomas. Unfortunate that we get into these things. We define down our conduct, the Senate, and I don't think we look very good, not responsible. We didn't do the right thing here. At least give the guy a vote.

But the better way to handle this is Daschle and Lott have to sit down and in quiet moment next week, and maybe get the president into this, and say, "Listen, let's stop this. Now, this is nonsense. This is like the Middle East. We will kill more of your guys than you kill of ours." That is irresponsible, and America deserves better than that.

And there will be retribution at polls in November, if this doesn't get straightened out.

SNOW: We've a phone call on the line, I think, from Tom Daschle's home state of South Dakota.

HAGEL: OK.

SNOW: Caller, are you there?

CALLER: Yes, I am.

SNOW: Go ahead.

CALLER: Is part of the homeland security going to include the food industry? And would part of that industry be covered under the country of origin labeling of the meat products and the fruits and vegetables?

HAGEL: The answer to your question is yes, we will and are, and have legislation already introduced. I'm the author...

SNOW: This is a concern about food and how safe is it when it comes into this country and borders...

HAGEL: Yes, the entire agriculture industry -- for example, one of the issues that came out a couple months ago was spraying of crops. If you remember, we were concerned a few months ago about terrorists getting...

SNOW: Right.

HAGEL: ... crop-spraying equipment and planes, and then spraying crops with poison -- could be biological product. And we do need to deal with that.

It will be part of the homeland defense initiative. Again, some of us up here have written legislation to do that. And it must be part of protecting, as homeland security is about, protecting all of the dynamics of homeland security.

SNOW: OK, Senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, thank you for spending so much

HAGEL: Thank you.

SNOW: ... time with us this morning.

HAGEL: Thanks, Kate.

SNOW: I appreciate that.

Straight ahead, the uproar over the Immigration Service. We'll talk to members of the House Judiciary Committee about what happened and what's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: It's inexcusable. And so we've got to reform the INS, and we've got to push hard to do so. This is an interesting wake-up call for those who run the INS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: An angry President Bush, after the INS mailed student visas for two of the September 11 hijackers to a Florida flight school six months to the day after the terrorist attacks.

Members of Congress are angry about this, too, including our guest this morning, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican James Sensenbrenner, joining us from his home state of Wisconsin. And joining us from Mountainview, California, is Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, also a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Good morning to you both.

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D), CALIFORNIA: Good morning.

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: Good morning.

SNOW: Congressman Sensenbrenner, six months to day these visas arrive in mail. How could that happen?

SENSENBRENNER: Because the IRS -- excuse me, the INS lives in the 18th century. All of the immigration records are on paper; they are not computerized. And even if Mohammad Atta was not a dead terrorist, the fact that the visas arrived 13 months after his course ended and he graduated shows how completely dysfunctional the Immigration Service is.

My proposal to abolish the agency and reconstitute two new agencies --one for service and one for enforcement -- is not a new one. It was originally proposed by a blue-ribbon commission headed by the late former Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas in 1994. And it has been lying around Congress since.

And Congress really has allowed this situation to fester and get worse, and now is the time to take some dramatic action. SNOW: Well, what about the action yesterday, Congresswoman Lofgren? Yesterday, the INS basically fired, replaced four of their top people. Is that a good start? Or enough?

LOFGREN: Well, it's not enough. This is primarily a management problem, not a legislative problem. And I, frankly, think that in some ways we're in the way if we continue to try and legislate a solution to this.

The commissioner and the attorney general have a plan for reorganization. I think we ought to support their plan, we ought to provide the resources, we ought to give them the authority to fire the management without regard to civil service protection, something I've been advocating for some time now. And then, if they can't fix it, fire them and get someone who can manage the agency.

SNOW: Congressman Sensenbrenner, critics say, and I'm sure you know this, that if you divide the agency, a bad agency, into two agencies, then you just have mistakes in those two agencies, and then you've got even more bureaucracy.

SENSENBRENNER: Well, I think dividing the agency, will get rid of the schizophrenia that the current law imposes, where you have one part of the INS that is supposed to deal with legal aliens who are looking for the documentation so that they can go to work and eventually become citizens of the United States, and on the other hand, routing out the illegal aliens and having them deported.

And this situation is so bad that the backlog of petitions that have not been adjudicated for those aliens who wish to comply with our law is now approaching 5 million. And the INS knows that there are 314,000 illegal aliens currently in the United States who have been ordered deported by a judge that have not left the country. And in many cases, the INS doesn't know where they are.

Now, it is a management problem. I don't think that continuing this schizophrenic agency under one tent is going to solve it. Congresswomen Jordan, I think, was correct, that the way we get accountability and better management is to split the agency in two, have vertical lines of authority, and require the people at the top, who have certain specified qualifications in management and in law enforcement for the enforcement end, overseen by an associate attorney general for immigration affairs.

SNOW: Congresswoman, can I ask you to respond as soon as we come back from one quick break here.

LOFGREN: Yes, certainly.

SNOW: We've got to go get updated on the headlines of the day, and then we'll come right back to the two of you.

SNOW: It's time for our news alert. We go quickly to Kyra Phillips in Atlanta.

(NEWSBREAK) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: An important source of information about the news of the day, the war and homeland defense can be found online at cnn.com, the AOL keyword, CNN.

We're continuing our conversation now about improving the country's immigration agency, talking with House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin and California Democratic Congresswoman Joe Lofgren, also a Judiciary Committee member.

Congresswoman Lofgren, let me go back to you. You were about to respond to this idea of splitting the INS into two parts, one for enforcement and one for all of the people that are legitimately in the country.

LOFGREN: Well, it's interesting because the Clinton administration looked at it, the commissioner under Clinton, and she disagreed with that. And now the commissioner under Bush also disagrees with that.

On Thursday, Attorney General Ashcroft asked the Congress to support their plan, which divides some of the responsibilities within the agency.

Now, this is a little role reversal in a way. I mean, Jim Sensenbrenner is the chairman of the committee, a Republican. I'm a Democrat. I don't get to decide what the committee does.

But what I'm saying is that we ought to support the commissioner's plan. We ought to support the -- they weren't my selection. But they're the management. We ought to support their efforts to manage this agency. And if they flub it, then we ought to get somebody who can manage it.

But I think continuing to try and rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic legislatively, is just going to get in the way of actually modernizing this agency.

They don't have computers. They don't have a computer plan. We agree that it is completely dysfunctional. We need to support the management, give them the money for the technology, give them the ability to fire people who are incompetent and get behind them instead of continuing to kind of flop around legislatively.

I think we should have gone ahead with that hearing on November 15, heard the commissioner's plan. Here it is four months later. We still haven't reconvened to hear his proposal...

SNOW: You're talking about when the commissioner was supposed to testify before the committee last November.

Chairman Sensenbrenner, why didn't he and why didn't you act back then?

SENSENBRENNER: He didn't testify because the INS turned in his testimony late. It was a two...

LOFGREN: Well, that happens all of the time, Jim. I mean, there's...

SENSENBRENNER: Well, come on, Zoe. It was a 2:00 p.m. hearing. We said that we wanted to have the testimony at least the night before so it could be read.

LOFGREN: It was late, it was unfortunate...

SENSENBRENNER: It was -- it was dropped -- Zoe, it was dropped off at 12:30 under -- over...

LOFGREN: So what, it's March now, Jim.

SENSENBRENNER: ... the lunch hour when nobody was around to be able to read it.

LOFGREN: It's four months later. We will still haven't reconvened. I mean, come on.

SENSENBRENNER: Well...

LOFGREN: What are we doing?

SNOW: Chairman Sensenbrenner, what about letting Mr. Ziglar do his job and just standing back and seeing whether -- what the attorney general and what the president has asked you to do, and just stand back and seeing whether that works.

SENSENBRENNER: Well, every commissioner for the last 20 years, whether it's under a Republican administration or a Democrat administration, has proposed an administrative reorganization of INS and reconfigured the boxes on the table of organization. And the problem has gotten worse rather than better.

Now, the only way we are able to impose qualifications on the people who are running the INS is statutorily. And the Jordan Commission called for Congress to step in and Congress didn't. Senators Kennedy and Abraham in 1999, introduced a bill very similar to mine and called for Congress to step in, and Congress didn't.

Everybody has known what the problems have been, and lo and behold, there have not been the corrections when the flight school gets Mohammed Atta's visa and the visa of the other person six months after they committed a terrorist act and 13 months after they graduated.

Now, you know, how long is Congress going to sit back and accept the representations of the Immigration Service bureaucracy that things are going to get better when we've heard that for years and years and they've gotten worse?

SNOW: Let's take a phone call quickly from Tennessee. Are you there? CALLER: Thank you for being there today. I have been wondering all week that Tom Ridge has not been associated with this INS blunder. As homeland security director, I would think that this would have been one of the first you would have looked in to, and I've found myself wondering why it is that he didn't address this immediately.

SNOW: Congresswoman Lofgren, it's not really in his purview though, is it? Or is that part of the problem that there is nobody responsible?

LOFGREN: Well, I think that is part of the problem in terms of Governor Ridge. I think he's an able buy from all I can see, but he doesn't really have line authority over anything. And I think that's part of the problem of the role that he has.

The truth is we need to hold people accountable. The attorney general and the commissioner of immigration are responsible for managing this agency.

LOFGREN: Now, the commissioner has been the commissioner since August. It's a mess. The agency has been a mess for decades. He's got a huge challenge that he faces. I think it's important that we try and support his efforts to clean the place up.

And I think it's a diversion for us to legislative and flop around. We should have the hearing we canceled in November, hear his plan, find out what the resources out, find out what tools he needs as a manager, and then hold him accountable. And if he can't perform, then he should be replaced with someone who can perform.

This is dangerous. This level of ineptitude is dangerous, and that we would be here four months later still just kind of, you know, talking without actually taking action, I think is really not good. It's not really what the people expect of us.

SNOW: Chairman Sensenbrenner, does Congress bear some responsibility here? I mean, Congress has passed a number of different laws. In '96 you required that the INS repair or track the system for student visas. And then that hasn't even happened, and that was five years ago.

SENSENBRENNER: And...

SNOW: Do you bear some responsibility as a Congress?

SENSEBRENNER: Well, Congress does bear some responsibility. And I think the responsibility we bear is not dealing with the recommendations of the Jordan Commission earlier.

The Senate is particularly disappointing because at the end of December, we passed a bill on visa tracking on an entry-exit system and having a better integration of databases and watch lists between intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the INS and the State Department -- the State Department, when they issue visas to aliens overseas, and the INS when they examine passports at airports and other ports of entry. And one Senator put a hold on that bill and it hasn't been acted upon.

But with the '96 student visa tracking system, the INS was told to do it. The appropriation for the INS has gone up 250 percent in the last eight years, and they still haven't gotten around to implementing the law the Congress has passed.

Now, you know, my colleague, I guess, is a little bit more patient than I am in terms of allowing the INS to clean up its act. They have had their chance. They have gotten the money. The act is less clean now than it ever has been, and I think the time has come for some radical reform.

And I guess it kind of puzzles me where here this conservative Republican is advocating radical reform and my colleague from the other side of the aisle appears to be a defender of the status quo and...

LOFGREN: Well, actually Jim, as you and I -- as you know, we -- the commissioner has asked for relief from some of the Civil Service rules. He asked has asked to be able to outsource management, to be able to hire and fire at the management level without regard to Civil Service...

SENSENBRENNER: And I support all of that.

LOFGREN: Well, that's not what we were told.

SENSENBRENNER: You know...

LOFGREN: We have not been able to act on that. We want to give him those tools...

SENSENBRENNER: I support all of that, but the Justice Department and the INS hasn't sent me legislation to deal with that.

LOFGREN: You're in charge.

SNOW: Congressman, Congresswoman, I am going to have to interrupt. We've run out of time. We will bring you back. We will discuss it again. We'll watch this. I know you're having a hearing this week on this very subject.

Thank you so much for both of you being with us, Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California. Thanks to both of you.

Up next, a look at our editorial cartoons and our SATURDAY EDITION reporters roundtable on the war and the week's other major developments.

We'll be right back.

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(ROUNDTABLE)

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SNOW: The House passed a bill this week that gives illegal immigrants a break. Those in the process of applying for a green card can stay in the U.S. through the end of November.

It happened under the radar, didn't get much attention. The president quietly had asked the House leaders to pass it at a White House meeting last week.

At a time when so much emphasis is on screening immigrants and making sure they're not potential terrorists, it might seem odd that the president would want to give amnesty, however brief, to illegal immigrants.

But there is a good reason: President Bush travels to Mexico this Thursday. And with this measure in hand, he wins points for good will toward Mexicans living in the U.S.

And what's more, Republicans are already thinking about attracting Hispanic voters in the upcoming election. Helping immigrants stay in the U.S. won't hurt.

That's all for this week's SATURDAY EDITION. I'm Kate Snow in Washington. Thanks for joining us.

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