One is couched as an "immigrant services" bureau and will supposedly be more responsive to "legitimate" requests by immigrants for legal residence, for citizenship, and around other legal matters. For working people this part of the INS is today simply a hopeless bureaucracy, years behind in processing even the simplest documents.

The other will be responsible for the traditional role of the hated la migra, such as victimizing workers already in the United States through immigration raids, roundups on the border, and jailings of individuals--called "enforcement" by officials in Washington and something the agency is already quite efficient at.

Under the House bill both bureaus would report to a new associate attorney general for immigration affairs at the Justice Department.

Reversing its stance, the Bush administration, which had opposed this bipartisan bill up until two days before passage, has now announced its backing for it.

The Senate is expected to vote on a similar bill that would also break the INS into two bureaus, but place them within a new organization "similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation," noted the New York Times.

Also under discussion is a proposal put forward by Thomas Ridge, the director of homeland security, who wants to create a new border cop agency that would take over the police operations of the INS, Customs Service, and Coast Guard.

Since passage of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act under the Clinton administration, the INS has been built into the largest federal police force with 15,000 officers carrying weapons and authorized to make arrests. The agency currently has 37,000 employees and an annual budget of $6.2 billion.

In proposals presented to Congress in February, President George Bush is seeking an increase of $1.2 billion in the next fiscal year for INS operations. Funds would be used to double the number of border patrol cops and develop a massive computer monitoring system to keep tabs on the movement of the 330 million noncitizens who enter the United States each year.

Since September 11 the INS has indefinitely detained hundreds of individuals who were rounded up for overstaying their visa, and have not been charged with any crime.

In early April, the INS announced several additional steps to restrict immigrants’ rights. Most tourist visas will now be good for only 30 days, down from six months. Undocumented workers who have been ordered to turn themselves in to the INS as part of a deportation process must now do so within 30 days or lose their ability to apply for legal status for 10 years. In addition, individuals planning to study in the United States will only be able to receive student status if they notify the agency about their study plans prior to entering the United States. The INS has also started up a computerized database to track the estimated 500,000 people who travel to the United States on student visas.

The Justice Department has drafted a legal opinion that would expand the operations of state and local police agencies to include the enforcement of immigration laws, something they are currently prohibited from doing. A pilot program along these lines in which cops not only help INS agents with logistics but actually carry out immigration raids is already in effect in Florida and South Carolina.
 
 
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Equal rights for immigrants  
 
 
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