F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, the issue is whether the INS should go into more sole- source procurement for information-technology issues. Competitive bidding keeps the cost down to the taxpayers, and it means that various vendors compete against one another on who can provide the best product for the lowest possible cost for what the government needs. I would remind all Members, but particularly those on the Republican side of the aisle, that the administration has a great deal of concern about this amendment, particularly the OMB. I do not think that as we restructure that agency we should throw out all of the procurement rules relative to computer and information-technology procurement. The time may come when the new Associate Attorney General for immigration affairs may find this necessary, but let us wait until we restructure the agency and the person who is going to be the overseer of the entire operation makes a determination of whether competitive bidding works or we should make a particular exception. This amendment puts the cart before the horse. I would urge a ``no'' vote to keep the cart after the horse. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes. Mr. Chairman, it is beyond time to restructure one of the worst-run agencies in the Federal Government, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS has long been considered the undesirable and unwanted stepchild of the Justice Department. It carries out neither of its crucial missions well, enforcing our immigration laws and providing services to immigrants playing by the rules. Today, we must stop being enablers, stop giving more and more money to an agency as a reward for squandering the money we gave it the year before. We must practice tough love and abolish the INS. In its place, we need to create two separate immigration bureaus in the Justice Department, a Bureau of Immigration Enforcement and a Bureau of Citizen and Immigration Services. This is what the Barbara Jordan Immigration Reform and Accountability Act of 2002 is all about. I am proud of the work of the Committee on the Judiciary in crafting this legislation on a cooperative and bipartisan basis. Barbara Jordan, our distinguished former colleague, chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The Commission came to the conclusion that the INS suffers from institutional schizophrenia, or mission overload. It explained that the INS must give equal weight to more priorities than any one agency can handle. Such a system is set up for failure, and with such failure, a loss of public confidence. That is exactly what has happened. The public no longer has faith in the INS. The public is right, and this bill abolishes this agency. Some say INS stands for ``ignoring national security.'' It is hard to argue with that. There are at least 8 million illegal aliens living in the United States, according to the Census Bureau. Over 300,000 criminal and deportable aliens who have been ordered deported, and removed by immigration judges, have absconded and the INS does not have the slightest idea where they are. Mohammed Atta became a household name after September 11 to everyone but those in the INS, which approved Atta's visa to attend flight school long after he had completed it, and 6 months after he hijacked a plane, flew it into the World Trade Center, and killed thousands of people of various nationalities. This bill creates a new Bureau of Immigration Enforcement, headed by a law enforcement professional and focused singly on crafting and carrying out policies to enforce our immigration laws and keep Americans safe from terrorists, criminals, and other aliens who wish to do us harm. National security will be given the attention it deserves. Others say INS stands for ``incompetent and negligent service.'' It would be hard to argue with them, either. The agency had a backlog of almost 5 million applications and petitions at the end of fiscal year 2001. It takes the INS years to adjudicate a green card application. It takes years for a naturalization applicant to become a U.S. citizen, and during this time, lawful immigrants trying to play by the rules must live in a state of purgatory. Let me give one example. Green card applicants must have their fingerprints taken on a card like this. Now, for legitimate law enforcement reasons, fingerprints are only valid for 15 months. However, when the INS takes years to process a petition, a prospective immigrant must take off work multiple times and often go out of the way to a fingerprinting center, two more cards. Even apart from the INS' slow-paced processing, very often they lose the fingerprints. And guess what? The alien has to have his fingerprints retaken. Here is strike four. This bill creates a new Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, headed by a professional in adjudicating government benefits. It will have the sole mission of adjudicating and providing benefits to aliens. The Bureau will bring the attention, the independence, and the budget to the immigration service issues that have been neglected far too long. The bill also creates an Office of the Ombudsman, independent of the service bureau. Currently, when aliens and their attorneys reach their wit's end with the INS, they approach their Representatives and Senators for help. My district caseworkers spend more time dealing with the INS than with any other Federal agency, including the IRS. Thankfully, my staff and those of all of the Members can often help immigrant constituents, but immigrants need an effective advocate within the bureaucracy so they do not come to their Representatives' offices in the first place. The Office of the Ombudsman will be that advocate. It will have the duty of recommending better operating methods for the Bureau and monitoring its performance. The Office of the Ombudsman will help infuse accountability into the immigration bureaucracy. The two bureaus created by this bill will have their own set of offices to focus on and carry out their respective missions, including policy and budget shops. The bill also creates within the Justice Department an Associate Attorney General for Immigration Affairs to oversee and to supervise the bureaus and to coordinate the administration of national immigration policy. This will elevate immigration issues to the level they deserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan, commonsense bill. It will result in true immigration reform, better service, better security, and it is long overdue. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I believe this amendment is also a very constructive amendment. Before we figure out how to deal with new immigrants, we have to figure out what to do with the 5 million case backlog we already have, and I think having innovative pilot programs, shuffling paperwork, seeing what works and seeing what does not but, more importantly, getting us automated and having a lot of the paperwork being changed from paper to electronic paper is going to mean that these adjudications take place in a timely manner and we will not have to have people getting fingerprinted 4 times before they can get a green card. So I would hope that this amendment would be speedily adopted.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding the time to me, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the manager's amendment, which already has been adopted by the committee, was drafted with bipartisan cooperation by the chairman and ranking members of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform. This amendment authorizes the Attorney General to create a demonstration project to test a new employee discipline model. The demonstration project will provide the Attorney General with much flexibility in crafting the most appropriate, effective, and fair method in disciplining a wide range of employees handling immigration functions. The demonstration project that has already been approved by the committee focuses on problem managers and emphasizes alternative methods of dispute resolution. It calls for an expeditious, fair, and independent review of disciplinary actions, and it protects the settled expectations of collective bargaining agreements while permitting union members to opt out of the project. We should give the Attorney General the chance to utilize the demonstration project. If it becomes apparent that the project is not working as expected, and that placing immigration-related employees in the excepted service would be beneficial, I would be the first to support legislation doing so, but now is not the time to do it. The gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) is absolutely correct in emphasizing the importance of having employees of the FBI, the CIA, and the excepted service. However, these agencies are different types of organizations than the INS. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services created by this bill will be staffed mostly with clerks and adjudicators. The hiring and discipline rules followed by the competitive service might be most appropriate for these employees. In any event, the question of placing all immigration employees in the excepted service merits extensive investigation before it is done. A change as radical as this, by placing them in the excepted service, should be carefully considered. Before introducing this bill, I did extensive investigation and oversight in practically every part of the country where the Immigration Service has a lot of business, including in San Diego, I might add. And some of the most useful information that we have heard today and during the consideration of this bill came from the unionized employees that I insisted upon meeting with, apart from management, to find out what was really going on. If they did not have the protection of the civil service laws, we would not have much of this information. I have never had employees of the FBI or the CIA or other agencies in the excepted service be as frank and honest with me during the time that I have served in Congress as I have tried to learn how these agencies work. So keeping them out of the excepted service I think is important, at least in terms of having candor on the part of the employees. That is something that the amendment of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Issa) would take away. I would not have found out about all the problems in San Diego if the employees that met with me were afraid that they would be fired by their district director because they were meeting face to face with me and I came out with information in public on how bad things were. Finally, I would like to point out that the adoption of this amendment would threaten the incredible bipartisan support that is enjoyed by this bill. I may not, in the end, necessarily agree with those bills' supporters, who could not accept under any circumstances placing immigration employees in the excepted service, but I do not want an ancillary issue like this, where the time is not right for making a decision, and the fact that the Congress does not have all of the data to be able to deal with this in an intelligent way and a fair way and with a full deck of cards, to erode support for this important bill. I would strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and join with the other members of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform in doing so. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I would like to have some time to be able to yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to support the amendment. I think she has a very constructive amendment in giving both the INS and the Congress statistics relative to denials. What we want to see in this restructured INS is a uniform application of the law, which means that if one applies at one INS office or restructured INS office, one should not get a different result if one applies at another office with the same set of facts and the same background. I think there is a great deal of suspicion that there is different strokes for different folks, depending upon what office one goes to or, even within an office, what immigration inspector ends up doing the adjudication. Having these statistics I think will help both the restructured agency in having uniform application of the law, as well as giving the Congress the data that is necessary to determine whether any further changes in the law are necessary. So I am pleased to support the amendment, and I hope that it is speedily adopted.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I believe this is a constructive amendment because it can give us some very good data on how reliant the service end of the INS is on fees that it collects from immigrants. I would hope that the committee would speedily adopt this amendment so that we can go on with the consideration of this bill.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I believe she has a very constructive amendment dealing with what is a major problem. We are happy to accept the amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I would like to express my appreciation to all of the members of the committee, to the bipartisan committee staff, to the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), to the ranking subcommittee member, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson- Lee) in putting together a bill which has huge bipartisan support. I also express my thanks to the President and the Attorney General for recognizing the need for legislative action and restructuring the Immigration Service so that it can be functional. I think we all recognize that this bill is not a panacea. The problems that we have heard about for the last 2.5 hours have taken years to develop: the 5 million backlog in processing applications for immigration services; the over 300,000 people who have had their day in court and have been ordered deported, that the INS has no idea where they are except that they are still in the United States of America. So should this bill pass and be signed into law, which I earnestly hope that it will before this Congress expires, it will take a long time for us to put our immigration affairs back in order. But this is the essential first start, because if we do not restructure the INS, telling them that they are supposed to adjudicate millions more applications when they are 5 million behind is just going to mean that new immigrants will be at the bottom of the pile and will have to wait much longer. To tell the current INS that they have to do a better job of enforcing against the Mohammed Attas that may still be in the country, when they have over 300,000 people already ordered deported and are still here, is going to complicate this system and have a further backlog. By restructuring the INS, we are on a good start. I urge Members to support this legislation.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to inform the gentleman and Members of Congress that this issue was addressed in the bill H.R. 3525, which requires the INS to implement a student visa tracking system. That bill was passed unanimously on a voice vote by the House of Representatives on December 19. The other body passed this bill with amendments on April 18. We will be having a vote on concurring with those amendments some time shortly, and the student visa tracking legislation, together with an entry-exit system tracking, will be on its way to the President for his expected signature. We are going to be across the finish line with this before the current bill goes before the President.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), a member of the committee.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this amendment which has been worked out on a bipartisan basis by the Committees on the Judiciary and Government Reform will give the Attorney General and the Associate Attorney General for Immigration Affairs personnel flexibility tools needed to ensure that the restructuring of the INS will be a success. First, it requires the directors of the two immigration bureaus to design and implement managerial rotation programs so that their managers will have experience in all the major functions of their respective bureaus and will have worked out in the field. I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) for crafting this important provision. Second, this amendment permits the Attorney General to offer buyouts to INS employees. That is essential to reshaping the agency. Third, and most importantly, the amendment authorizes a 5-year demonstration project relating to disciplinary actions. It permits the AG to change policies and procedures regarding methods of disciplining employees in order to improve the quality of INS management. This would ensure discipline for both employee malfeasance and nonfeasance. The demonstration project must encourage the use of alternative means of dispute resolution, where appropriate, and require expeditious, fair and independent review of disciplinary actions. The amendment provides needed flexibility for managing the new immigration components. I want to thank the Committee on Government Reform for its work, support and patience in drafting this amendment. I want to thank three members of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) who worked particularly hard to ensure that the Justice Department would have the personnel flexibility to make restructuring a success. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), and I ask unanimous consent that he may be entitled to yield part of that time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 3231.