Such a restructuring should be the first step toward ensuring that the United States will effectively administer and enforce its immigration laws, and will treat immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers with the professionalism and dignity which they deserve. HIAS and AILA are on record in support of reforming and restructuring the INS to disentangle its conflicting missions of adjudication services and enforcement, clarify its priorities, and ensure adequate resources to carry out its important function. As you can see in the attached letter, many nonprofit organizations and agencies concerned with immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers have stated that four broad principles should serve as the foundation for any INS reform so as to equip the agency with the tools it needs to perform both of its functions effectively. H.R. 2528, however, attempts to restructure INS without due concern for the principles and, in so doing, could make a bad situation even worse. Consequently, it would place the immigration inspections function of INS in the enforcement bureau.
Immigration inspectors have quasi-judicial authority.
By taking them out of the adjudications side of INS and placing them in a bureau exclusively focused on enforcement, there would be no checks or balances to ensure that inspectors do not deport and impose severe penalties on bona fide asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants. In this sense, H.R. 2528 fails to respect our Constitutional tradition of ensuring that policemen and prosecutors do not exercise judicial authority. Likewise, the Bill requires that the detention of non-criminals who are being held pending the outcome of administrative immigration proceedings would be relocated outside the INS and become a function of the Bureau of Prisons. The adjudications and enforcement functions should be split, but H.R. 2528 is dangerous in its failure to define the distinction between these two functions. Furthermore, the full scale divorce between the two functions leads to additional problems noted below.