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Guest Commentary March 22, 2002
Merging INS, Customs Won't Solve Problems
The Honorable Byron Dorgan
I have commended President Bush for his prosecution of the war against terrorism. I think his recommendations in this budget dealing with homeland security are some thoughtful and good recommendations.
But there is one recommendation that is now floating around, being advanced by [Office of Homeland Security Director Tom] Ridge and others, that I will not support. That is a recommendation to merge the Customs Service with the Immigration Service. Let me describe why I think that would be inappropriate.
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We are not going to solve the problems of any agency by simply creating larger bureaucracies. That doesn't solve any problems of government.
We had an embarrassing circumstance a couple of weeks or so ago in which the Immigration Service issued visas to Mohammed Atta and one of the other terrorists who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center and murdered thousands of people.
We need to solve those problems at the INS. I must say Mr. Ziglar, who runs the INS, a friend of mine and acquaintance of most of the Senate, has inherited an agency that had a lot of problems, no question about that. I know he is struggling mightily to deal with them. I wish him well and I want to help him to do that. But he inherited an agency that wasn't able to track anything on its computers. It couldn't track down someone who overstayed a visa. I think Mr. Ziglar has a lot of work to do, and I want to help him do that.
But visiting the problems at the INS that Mr. Ziglar inherited on the Customs Service makes no sense at all. The Customs Service runs pretty well. We have some problems there as well, but it is an entirely different agency, which deals with the facilitation of trade and the prohibition of illegal goods from coming into the country. It is the second largest revenue raiser for the Federal Government next to the Internal Revenue Service. So I don't want to visit upon the Customs Service the problems of the INS or any other Federal agency, and I don't believe you solve the problems with respect to these issues by creating larger government and bigger bureaucracies. ...
The idea of merging Customs and the INS is one that I just cannot support.
Byron Dorgan, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from North Dakota. The above column has been adapted from a speech Sen. Dorgan delivered on the floor of the Senate, March 22, 2002. To contact him, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
