Criminal aliens annually cost our criminal justice system millions of dollars, and these aliens are generally perceived to be a serious and growing threat to public safety. In response to these problems, several major laws were passed between 1986 and 1996 that (1) provided for the initiation of removal proceedings for certain criminal aliens while they were incarcerated, (2) expanded the types of crimes for which aliens could be deported, and (3) sought to facilitate the expeditious removal of those aliens found to be deportable. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-603) requires that INS initiate removal proceedings for criminal aliens as expeditiously as possible after the date of conviction. INS and EOIR established the IHP to meet this requirement. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-690) defined the crimes of murder and certain drug and weapons trafficking crimes as “aggravated felonies” and required INS to initiate and, to the extent possible, complete removal proceedings for aggravated felons before their release from incarceration. It also required that INS take all such aggravated felons into custody when the aliens are released from prison. Several laws passed in the 1990s, including the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Public Law 104-208 (1996 Act), expanded the types of crimes that are considered aggravated felonies. Under the 1996 Act, INS is required to take all aggravated felons and certain other criminal aliens into custody when the aliens are released from prison. Currently, INS may release deportable criminal aliens, including aggravated felons, from custody only if (1) the aliens were lawfully admitted to the United States, or were not lawfully admitted to the United States but the designated country of removal will not accept the aliens, and (2) the aliens satisfy the Attorney General that they will not pose a danger to the safety of other persons or of property and that they are likely to appear for any scheduled proceeding. In addition to traditional removal proceedings, which require a hearing before an immigration judge, Congress has provided alternative methods for INS to remove certain criminal aliens. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-322) provided for administrative removals, thereby eliminating the hearing requirement for those aliens who were not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, were convicted of an aggravated felony, and were not eligible for relief from removal. The 1996 Act provided for reinstatement of removal orders (referred to as a “final order of deportation”) against aliens who reentered the United States illegally after being removed. The prior order of removal is reinstated from its original date and is not subject to being reopened or reviewed; the alien is not eligible for and may not apply for any relief. For criminal aliens who are in prison and have a right to an immigration judge review before being removed, proceedings before an immigration judge are to be conducted through the IHP. As of September 1998, the IHP was carried out at 15 federal and 61 state prisons where INS staff are to conduct interviews and process aliens for removal. Since 1994, INS has developed written IHP enhancement plans for BOP and states with large foreign-born inmate populations to enhance the processing of aliens in prisons. The plans, which varied among BOP and the states, included such enhancements as reducing the number of prison locations that INS staff had to visit to process criminal aliens and increasing the number of INS staff who process IHP cases. For example, INS signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BOP to enable INS staff to process a large portion of the foreign-born inmates by visiting 11 federal institutions that were designated as IHP sites instead of visiting more than 70 federal institutions. At the state level, INS’ agreement with Texas was to enhance the IHP process by establishing one state prison where all of the foreign-born inmates would be identified and processed for hearings and from which inmates would be released into INS custody. The IHP’s goal is for INS and EOIR to complete removal proceedings for all criminal aliens while they are still serving their sentences and expeditiously remove aliens deemed deportable upon their release from prison. This action would eliminate the need for INS to take aliens into long-term custody upon their release and would free up INS detention space for other cases. Aliens who do not complete the IHP are often taken into INS custody after prison release to complete the hearing process while in INS detention, and these aliens can be ordered removed by an immigration judge during the detention period. INS agents generally rely on BOP and state corrections personnel to notify them of incoming prisoners who state they are foreign born or whom corrections personnel identify as foreign born. According to corrections personnel, they typically first learn that prisoners are foreign born during prison intake procedures, which include interviews with and record checks on arriving inmates. The IHP process begins when INS agents screen foreign-born inmates to determine their deportability. If the INS agent determines that an inmate has committed a crime for which he or she can be deported, the agent is to file a “detainer” with corrections officials. A detainer in a prisoner’s record signifies that he or she is to be released to INS custody upon completion of the prison sentence. The information that INS agents gather on criminal aliens during the initial phase of the IHP process is to be used to prepare documents notifying the aliens of INS’ intention to deport them through removal proceedings, administrative removal, or reinstatement of a prior order. INS attorneys are to review the notices for legal sufficiency, and, for removal proceeding cases, INS files the cases with EOIR and serves the aliens with a document charging them with having committed a deportable offense. At that point, the aliens are included in the IHP. EOIR is to schedule an initial hearing and notify the alien. The purpose of the initial hearing is to explain the process to the alien, resolve evidentiary issues, prepare a list of desired witnesses, and address the issue of legal representation for the alien. The alien may immediately accept an order for deportation. Alternatively, if the alien contests removal, a subsequent hearing may be held, during which witnesses may be called and evidence may be entered supporting INS’ charge of deportability and/or the alien’s claim for relief from removal. After all of the evidence is presented and appeals processes, if any, are completed, an immigration judge renders a final decision. If the alien is ordered removed, a deportation order is to be served on the alien. Before a final decision on the case, INS is required to take certain deportable aliens into custody, even if the removal proceedings have not been completed. Those in removal proceedings who receive a final order of deportation, as well as those who are to be deported through administrative and reinstatement orders, are to be held in INS detention until they are removed from the United States. Appendix II contains a flowchart of the IHP process. To assess the performance of INS’ efforts to deport criminal aliens, we analyzed data on 19,639 individuals who were identified by BOP and four states as foreign born and released from prisons between January 1 and June 30, 1997. Our work was designed to determine the extent to which deportable criminal aliens were included in the IHP, the extent to which INS completed removal hearings for deportable aliens during their time in prison and after their release, and whether INS had acted on the recommendations that we made during our July 1997 testimony. Also, for this report we compared, where appropriate, IHP performance in 1997 to the 1995 data on foreign-born inmates presented in our IHP testimony. We generally used the same methodology for our data collection and analysis that we used for our July 1997 testimony. However, for our 1995 sample we were able to conduct a 16- to 22-month follow-up on the disposition of released inmates. For the 1997 sample, time constraints limited us to doing a 9- to 15-month follow-up. Because 9 months was the common amount of time that all inmates in both samples could be followed up, comparisons between the 1995 and 1997 results are based on a 9-month follow-up period from the time an inmate was released. We concentrated primarily on the activities of INS—as opposed to EOIR—because INS has the lead role in identifying incarcerated criminal aliens, determining these aliens’ deportability, initiating removal proceedings, and removing aliens from the United States. We focused on IHP activities in the federal BOP and in California, Florida, New York, and Texas, which are four of the five states that were included in our July 1997 IHP study. To identify which released inmates were in or had completed removal proceedings, we asked EOIR to do a computer match of EOIR data with data from BOP and four states on foreign-born aliens released in the first half of 1997. To gather data on aliens released to INS custody and removed, we asked INS to match data for cases with identifying alien numbers (A-number) from BOP and the four states against INS’ Deportable Alien Control System. We asked LESC to query several INS and criminal databases to determine the immigrant and criminal status of released inmates who did not have A-numbers and those who were not matched through EOIR or INS databases. To assess INS’ efforts to implement the five recommendations that we made in our July 1997 testimony, we interviewed INS headquarters officials and reviewed available documentation. (See app. III for a detailed description of our objectives, scope, and methodology.) Our work was conducted between November 1997 and September 1998 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. As was the case when we testified before your Subcommittee in July 1997, we again found that INS had not identified all potentially deportable imprisoned criminal aliens. As a result, INS did not fully comply with the legal requirements that it (1) place criminal aliens who had committed aggravated felonies in removal proceedings while they are incarcerated or (2) take those aggravated felons into custody upon their release from prison.