Speech #980214155

Mr. Chairman. our immigration laws were not designed to handle the Marlel boatlift when 125.000 Cubans arrived in south Florida in 1980. We still have those same laws today. As a result. we have 170.000 asylum applications pending before immigration judges. compared to as few as 3.800 in 1978. There are only 55 immigration judges and they are required to hear millions of petitions from aliens on all kinds of immigration matters. including asylum. each year. It is no wonder that even routine hearing determinations of status take years. and the opportunities for delay in exclusion and deportation matters are great. Although this bill makes significant improvements in the system for adjudicating exclusion. deportation and asylum matters by creating an administrative law judge system independent of the Immigration Service and an independent U.S. Immigration Board. the bill as written contains unduly elaborate procedures. and the amendment I am now offering and the one I will offer after this one are designed to streamline the process by creating a fair. yet expeditious. procedure which fully meets the requirements of due process. The Immigration and Nationality Act provides mechanisms for adjudicating: First. whether an alien who has entered the United States is deportable. and Second. whether an alien applying for admissionother than at a U.S. Consular Office abroadwho has not entered the United States. is excludable. The operating term in determining whether a case is a deportation. as opposed to an exclusion. case. is "entry." Prior to effecting entry. an aliens admissibility is determined through exclusion proceedings. whereas. once entry has been effected. he is placed in the deporation process. Whether or not an alien has "entered" the United States for the purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act is not necessarily related to whether or not he or she is actually. physically within the geographic boundaries of the United States. The distinction. with certain exceptions such as parolees. is based on where the alien originally comes into contact with U.S. officials and is apprehended or detained. Generally. if that event occurs at or near the border. the case goes to exclusion. whereas. if the alien manages to enter the United States surreptitiously. and thereafter is apprehended by INS. he will be put into deportation proceedings. The concerns I have about the adjudication structure in the bill as it now reads can be traced to two sources: The retention of multiple layers of review. which will delay and hinder the workings of the adjudication system. and the failure to maintain the "summary exclusion" provisions of the orginial SimpsonMazzoli bill. Under section 121 of the bill. when an alien who is trying to enter the United States comes in contact with U.S. officials and is apprehended or detained at or near the border. and an Immigration Inspector determines that the alien does not present documentation required for entry. does not have any reasonable basis for entry. and does not indicate an intention to apply for asylum. he is excluded from entry into the United States without a hearing. The problem comes from the fact that the bill does not stop at this point. It qualifies the summary exclusion procedure by giving such an alien rights which. in effect. nullify the entire summary thrust of this procedure. Once an Immigration Inspector. after checking with his superiors. decides to exclude an alien for the reasons outlined in the law. the bill requires him to tell the alien that he has a right to be represented by counsel. to have an administrative law judge redetermine the exclusion matters the Immigration Officer has just decided. My amendment would strike this unworkable portion of the bill that requires the Immigration Officer under such circumstances to tell the alien that he has a right to be represented by counsel and to have a redetermination of the exclusion decision by an administrative law judge. Lets not kid ourselves. We either are going to have a summary exclusion procedure or were not.