INS under fire for sniper suspect release

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee -- which has jurisdiction over the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- is considering looking at the failure of the Border Patrol to keep sniper suspect John Lee Malvo in custody last winter after he was detained for being in the country illegally.

Although no decision on an investigation has yet been made, committee staff said that an investigation could be begin after the November elections.

The INS has come under fire for the decision by Border Patrol agents to release Malvo last December after he was taken into custody during an argument between Malvo's mother and John Muhammad, the other suspect in a series of sniper attacks in the Washington area that killed 10 and wounded three over a three week period.

Both the INS and Border Patrol have refused comment on why Malvo was released three days after his Dec. 19 detention. A copy of the detention report examined by United Press International shows that Malvo and his mother admitted to being in the country illegally at the time of their arrest in Bellingham, Wash.

A senior Justice Department official said that the INS had put a "wall of silence" around the detention and release.

"It makes them look really bad," he said. "Considering the negative publicity they've received in the past year or so, they are afraid of taking the blame for these murders. They've completely circled the wagons."

The INS has also come under heavy criticism because it granted visas to at least 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers and upgraded the status of two long after their deaths, a revelation that has led Congress to introduce legislation to transfer the agency to a new Department of Homeland Security, or to abolish it altogether and transfer its duties to new agencies.

Although he said the decision came from a desire to return to private business, James Ziglar announced his resignation as head of the INS on Aug. 16, but did not set a date for his actual departure from the agency.

Ziglar joined 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.

Steve Camarota, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors stronger immigration controls, said the Malvo episode highlights the agency's inability to do the job of protecting the country's borders.

"It shows that the INS cannot do the mundane work of keeping illegals out of the country," he said. "The fact is, this guy got through because no one is looking for illegal aliens very hard. And even with that, the system is clogged with millions of people and they can't keep up. This is the same case with terrorists that sneak into our country."

Judy Glub, an official with the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the blame does not completely reside with the INS, but rather with Congress, which demands safe borders and refuses to fund the agency with the money it needs for the massive task of tracking the millions of people who come through the United States.

"They aren't funded," said Glub. "They get no where near the money they need to perform this nearly impossible task."

In a letter to President Bush written at the time of his resignation, 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."

The debate over the formation of a Department of Homeland Security has stalled in the Senate over unrelated issues, but both the House and Senate have approved versions that would move the bulk of the agency's duties to a new agency.