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Home Front
INS screws up again
2002-03-23
  • Four Pakistani crewmen who jumped ship in a Virginia port are not believed to be dangerous, but reports that an immigration official improperly allowed them to come ashore are prompting demands for stricter security. An Immigration and Naturalization Service inspector in Norfolk failed to get authorization before granting a special waiver allowing the men off the ship.
    Demands for his head on a platter would be appropriate. FoxNews said last night that one of them may have been on a watch list. Whether he was or not, he could have been.

    The incident prompted INS Commissioner James Ziglar to issue a memo Friday to INS regional and district directors warning that, effective immediately, he is "implementing a zero tolerance policy with regard to INS employees who fail to abide by headquarters-issued policy and field instructions... The days of looking the other way are over."
    The days of looking the other way should have ended sometime around 9 a.m. on September 11th. My advice would be to fire Mr. Ziglar, break up INS, throw away the pieces that don't work and build new ones from scratch, and assign the remainder to federal agencies that do work, if they can find any.

    Border control should be a specialized military or paramilitary function -- the Russers could probably give us advice, or the Germans, or the Indos. Immigration should be a function of the State Department. Monitoring resident aliens (legal and illegal) should be the responsibility of a Domestic Security Service, which should be prohibited by law from monitoring the activities of citizens. Track them from the time they come into the country, and if they try to drop out of sight, track them down and deport them.
    Pre 9-11 these were the guys who asked you if you were a US citizen at the border drive throughs. When you responded, "yes and all my kids too..." as you pointed to the rear of your tinted window minivan, they said "hunh-hunh" and waved you through. Perhaps our superhero of yesterday was just remniscent about the good ole days.

    By the way, the prescription for resident aliens to report into the police/INS weekly or monthly isn't a bad idea. At least they could get their applications renewed or updated accurately that way.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/23/2002 1:16:27 PM
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

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