Speech #960270620

Chairman. I strongly support the gentlemans amendment. and only wish that it could be for a greater amount. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is a seriously troubled agencyunderstaffed and poorly equipped to meet its increasingly important responsibilities. Morale is dangerously low and too many employees are poorly trained. The border patrol problems constitute a tinder box ready to explode. Severely understaffed. many members of the patrol singly face as many as 20 illegal aliens in the dead of night. Can one person hold them back? Of course not. These people are desperate to cross the border. and serious violence in these confrontations is always possible. Twice the Congress has appropriated additional funds for the border patrol. Twice the Carter administration has refused to use those funds to increase the border patrol. Yet it was President Carter who. when presenting his amnesty for illegal aliens plan. proposed increasing the border patrol by 2.000. There are pitifully few INS inspectors. and the increase of 402 included in my colleagues amendment will help to a very small degree. Current INS inspectors have been burdened with mountains of paperwork in providing services to foreigners in the United States who are entitled to benefits of one sort or another. but they have not been apprehending many illegal aliens lately. The Attorney General. chief legal officer of the United States. decided to suspend enforcement of the law. and on November 26. instructed the INS Commissioner that his agents were not to seek out illegal aliens in their places of residence. The only enforcement of the law was to be at places of employment. Consequently. illegal aliens not apprehended at the border faced little chance of apprehension once in the United States. In March. the Attorney General further suspended the laws operation by instructing the INS Commissioner that his agents could not enter homes or workplaces without a search warrant. court order. or approval of a U.S. attorney. Included in the order were instructions not to act on anonymous tips unless the source would be willing to testify during legal proceedings. My colleagues will all recall a recent murder that took place in this city a few months agoan INS informant was publicly named and promptly murdered. We are faced with a situation where the administration has twice defied congressional increases for the border patrol. and the Attorney General. sworn to enforce the law. decides to suspend enforcing the law. in order to encourage illegal aliens to participate in the 1980 census. Even the First Lady lent her influence to this effort when. during a visit to California. she assured listeners to a Spanish radio station that they would not be arrested if they cooperate with the census takers. Although the Attorney Generals order may be lifted July 1. there are many who fear the suspension order will be continued in some manner. thereby putting into effect the Carter administrations amnesty for illegal aliens plan which has had no congressional action or attention at all. I urge my colleagues to overwhelmingly adopt the gentlemans amendment. The situation is reaching crisis proportions.