INS freezes thousands of immigration applications
By TAMARA AUDI and AMILIA ASKARI
Detroit Free PressThursday, October 4, 2001
DETROIT (Updated 11:35 p.m. EDT) - The Immigration and Naturalization Service has temporarily frozen potentially hundreds of thousands of immigration applications and visa petitions from those living in the United States while it conducts a national audit of immigrant applicants and assigns a bar code to every one.
Meanwhile, up to 80,000 refugees worldwide are locked out of the United States until President Bush decides how many to accept from which countries in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
INS officials said they plan to lift the temporary immigration hold by Oct. 9, but only if their count is complete by then.
The freeze could affect immigrants in the United States in various stages of resident status by delaying applications for permanent residence, citizenship or visa extensions.
It does not affect immigrants entering the country for the first time. They are issued temporary visas by the State Department through U.S. embassies abroad. Once in the United States, however, immigrants must apply for citizenship or extended stays through the INS.
In the days following last month's attacks, the nation's system for tracking immigrants and visitors has come under increased scrutiny.
INS Commissioner James Ziglar acknowledged Wednesday that his agency is partly to blame for security lapses.
"The structure of the organization and the management systems that we have in place are outdated and, in many respects, inadequate for the challenges we face," Ziglar said in his first testimony before Congress since his appointment two months ago. "Our information technology systems must be improved in order to ensure timely and accurate determinations."
INS has 1,977 investigators to deal with people who enter the country illegally, overstay their visas or otherwise violate immigration laws.
From Oct. 1, 2000, though August, 437,045 immigrants applied for U.S. citizenship, according to INS records. During that time period, 6.8 million immigrants applied for a variety of other immigration benefits, including visa extensions and green cards.
For now, the INS, a network of processing offices spread across the country and run by the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., has organized the audit to have the "least impact possible" on applicants, INS headquarters spokeswoman Elaine Komis said. But nobody is sure how many will be affected.
While a national audit has been done for the last two years, the bar code system has never been attempted before, INS officials said. Both the audit and the bar code system were proposed before the Sept. 11 attacks, Komis said.
"This inventory is not related to enforcement or investigation," Komis said. "It's simply a way for us to see how many cases we have not completed yet, and how much money is associated with that caseload."
The freeze began Sept. 30, at the end of the government's fiscal year.
Komis said the bar code information will allow the INS and immigrants applying for resident benefits to track individual files, and get updated information on the status of their applications.
That information, essentially a computerized database of immigrant applications, will not be shared with the FBI or the CIA, Komis said.
Immigrant advocates said they question the INS's ability to complete the bar code system by Oct. 9, and the motives behind the bar codes.
"It's what you do with that information that raises concerns. I have some concerns about bar coding individuals in general," said Noel Saleh, an immigration lawyer in Detroit. "It depends on how far they want to take it. I can understand the need to start using technology to keep better records."
Ultimately, if the bar codes help organize INS records and keep people from falsifying documents, "Then I applaud it," Saleh said.
Meanwhile, no new refugees will be allowed to enter the country until Bush signs a new directive for fiscal year 2002, which began Oct. 1.
A temporary delay in processing refugees is common this time of year, as the government adjusts to a new fiscal year. But this year the hiatus is complicated by shifts in the diplomatic landscape after last month's attacks.
In the past, the White House usually issued its annual directive on refugees by late October. This year, no one is sure what will happen.
As the United States prepares for a possible war in Afghanistan, the number of people from that country seeking refuge is expected to increase. Last year, slightly more than 2,000 Afghan refugees entered the United States.