INS Vigilance Under Fire

Is It Too Easy For Terrorists To Get Into The U.S. ?

(CBS)  When a database containing the names of suspected terrorists and known criminals goes down at Miami’s airport, INS inspectors continue to process aliens, even though their names can’t be check against the terrorist lists.

A veteran Immigration and Naturalization Service inspector tells 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft that database disruptions are a routine occurrence, and supervisors give the orders to continue processing aliens. Several other INS inspectors confirmed his claims. Kroft’s report will be broadcast Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

This is among several problems that a former deputy U.S. attorney general and other authorities say plague the INS, a crucial part of the nation’s first line of defense against foreign terrorists.

Even though the watch-list database is down, his supervisors tell him, “‘Let’s keep processing them and keep going,’” says INS inspector Stanley Mungaray. Mungaray adds that the database goes down “at least” once or twice a week, and that it has happened after Sept. 11, and there is no back-up.

“We don’t know who we’re admitting…if the person is a criminal…on the [terrorist] watch list,” says Mungaray.

Once foreigners are in the U.S., the INS has no reliable system to track their whereabouts or compel them to leave when their visas expire. Recently, it sent agents to find 314,000 foreigners – 6,000 of whom are from countries identified as al Qaeda strongholds – who were asked to leave voluntarily and never did.

“There are many things they have done very poorly for a variety of reasons,” says George Terwilliger, a former deputy attorney general of the U.S. “You’d have to say that the agency just doesn’t function to the level that’s necessary to do its job.”

Other computer problems also keep INS from protecting the U.S. from dangerous visitors. Convicted serial killer Raphael Resendez-Ramirez’ name was entered seven times into a computer database that the Border Patrol, a division of the INS, uses to track people who cross the border illegally. In none of those cases was it revealed to authorities that he was wanted by the FBI for murder. Each time he was picked up, he was let go.

“He was in custody seven times and was found guilty of committing four murders after the seventh time he had been released,” says Rep. Elton Gallegly, R.-Calif., a senior member of the House Immigration and Claims Subcommittee.

“We have increased the budget for INS over the last eight years 250 percent, and it’s less functional than it was eight years ago,” he tells Kroft.

Gallegly also recounts another incident, in which the Border Patrol refused to pick up a foreigner trying to gain access to a U.S. Naval base using fake identification. Gallegly questioned the INS, only to learn that it was standard policy.

“And I said,” he tells Kroift, “‘If you can’t protect the integrity of a military installation from people using fraudulent documents…what can you protect?’”