INS chief quits post amid criticism

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- After a year in which his agency granted visas to the Sept. 11 hijackers and upgraded the status of two long after their deaths, James Ziglar Friday announced his departure as the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The decision came even as Congress is debating legislation to transfer or abolish the INS.

Ziglar expressed a desire to return to the private sector after joining the INS on Aug. 6, 2001. Less than a month after his arrival, terrorist attacks killed about 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

This event and subsequent revelations that most of the hijackers legally entered the country without detection and the ensuing debacle that saw the INS approve updated visa requests for two of the hijackers six months after they died clouded his tenure at an agency that is currently under a bipartisan siege of reform by Congress.

In a letter to President Bush, Ziglar acknowledged his tenure had been a difficult one.

"Although I could not have imagined the events of September 11 and the dramatic changes visited upon the Immigration and Naturalization Service, I have done my best to continue making progress toward the goals of restructuring the agency and reducing backlogs while responding to the call of arms in the war on terrorism," Ziglar writes. "I believe the record will indicate that we have made substantial progress toward those goals."

Ziglar did not set a date for his departure, but said he would be available to help the service make the transition to becoming part of the Department of Homeland Security. That Cabinet-level agency has been approved by the House and is about to be debated by the Senate. It is expected to replace or oversee virtually all the functions of the INS.

Ziglar had battled with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who had demanded that the INS be split into two separate agencies -- one for enforcement and the other for immigration services. Ziglar -- and the administration -- have pushed a restructured approach that would leave the INS intact.

The House legislation splits the agency; with enforcement duties sent to the new agency and immigration services remaining under the Department of Justice.