The President signs the bill passed by Congress last week that balances the budget by the year 2002 and cuts taxes. But critics of the agency say that the political atmosphere in recent years has caused the INS to do the exact opposite of Meissner's original goal by spending enormous resources on border enforcement while at the same time drowning in a backlog of naturalization applications.
Observers call it mission overload.
Now there is talk of breaking up the agency and assigning its duties to other government agencies. A fresh team of Russian cosmonauts is en route to the troubled space station MIR, and as in some circles in the U.S., Russians are questioning whether it continues to be feasible to spend precious resources on their once-venerated space program. For more information about Pacifica and its programming, visit the Pacifica Web site. Obtain a cassette copy of this and other Pacifica programs from the Pacifica Radio Archives . Pacifica is available thanks to the generous assistance of KUOW , public radio in Seattle.