STATEMENT
OF
EUGENE R. DAVIS
RETIRED DEPUTY CHIEF PATROL AGENT
U.S.BORDER PATROL
BLAINE SECTOR
BLAINE, WASHINGTON
REGARDING
ALIEN PROCESSING PROCEDURES AND PROBLEMS
FAILURE TO APPEAR FOR HEARINGS BY RELEASED ALIENS
LACK OF RESOUCES AND INABILITY OF ANY INTERIOR
INS OFFICE TO PERFORM
ANY SIGNIFIGANT IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT
FUNCTION
BEFORE
THE PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
NOVEMBER 13, 2001
Mr. Chairman and
members of the Subcommittee.
My name is Eugene R. Davis. On January 1, 2000, I
retired after spending 29 years with the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. During
my tenure with the INS I served as a Border
Patrol Agent, Immigration Inspector, Special
Agent, Patrol Agent in Charge with the Border
Patrol, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, and as the
Deputy Chief Patrol Agent for the Blaine Sector
at Blaine, Washington. During my years of
service I spent much of the time in the field
leading enforcement operations. Those operations
included working jointly with Special Agents in
the Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and
Anchorage, Alaska District offices. Because of
the expertise and knowledge that I gained over my
many years of experience I have testified
before the U.S. House of Representatives on two
previous occasions.
I am honored to be here today and wish to express
my sincere appreciation for giving me the
privilege of testifying. I enjoyed very
much my years of service. I can truly say that
most of the field agents that I worked with in
the Border Patrol, Immigration Inspections, and
Investigations were, and continue to be,
dedicated government employees who simply want to
do their jobs in the manner that they have taken
an oath to do.
Since the horrible events that took place on
September 11, 2001, I have encountered numerous
INS employees who are having a very difficult
time dealing with what happened. The
emotions of these INS employees mirror those of
all other American citizens, but they go much
deeper because of the sense of guilt, anger, and
betrayal that they feel towards upper INS
management. These dedicated INS employees feel
that if they had been given the proper tools to
do their jobs, and if they had been allowed to
enforce immigrations laws in the manner that
should have been done that the events of
September 11 may not have taken place.
I also believe this to be the case. It is my
opinion that most of the blame as to how these
terrorists were able to come to our shores to
perpetrate these evils acts was because of a
total breakdown of the Immigration policies and
procedures in this country. If a building
had collapsed because of faulty construction and
almost 6000 innocent people had lost their lives
accountability would be demanded. It is my
sincere hope that the United States Congress will
carefully examine the collapse of meaningful
enforcement efforts within INS and will demand
accountability. As various
Subcommittees go about their business of putting
the INS under strict examination I hope that they
will have the wisdom to reach out to the retired
District Directors and Chief Patrol Agents who
will be willing to come forward and testify.
They are the real experts as to what has gone
wrong in Immigration enforcement. There are
entire legions of retirees that are willing to
come forward. I believe there are also huge
numbers of present INS employees willing to come
forward if the gag order they are under would be
lifted. As accountability turns into culpability
I hope that Congress will see that those found to
be derelict in their duties could be removed and
those found to be criminally negligent or to have
performed unlawful acts could be charged and
prosecuted.
Per the request of the Subcommittee there are
several things that I would like to address that
were areas of concern during my service with the
Border Patrol.
ALIEN PROCESSING PROCEDURES AND PROBLEMS
During the last ten years that I served in the
Blaine Sector we encountered a great deal of
difficulty in our efforts to effectively
incarcerate and remove undocumented aliens.
This included both illegal aliens that we
encountered while doing interior enforcement
operations and those whom we arrested coming
across the international border from Canada.
If our agents could establish that the
apprehended alien had a serious criminal record
we could usually locate a correction facility to
hold him. It was extremely difficult to
locate any criminal record on third country
aliens entering the United States from Canada.
Most had no identification at all, and we had
nothing to go on but their word, which was
usually highly suspect. Due to the fact
that they had no identification and they were in
the United States, it was impossible to remove
them to Canada. Lacking evidence of a criminal
record and because of a severe shortage of funds
and jail space, most of these arrested aliens
were given a “notice to appear” or
“an order to show cause,” and they were
released on their own recognizance. Before
being released the processing agent would ask the
alien what his destination was and inform him
that he had a maximum of 30 days to report to the
nearest INS office for a hearing. A file
was then created and mailed to the INS District
closest to where the alien said he was going.
Over the years that this policy was in effect
there were literally hundreds of aliens from many
countries who were released in this manner. Many
of the undocumented aliens whom we encountered
who were already residing in the country were
given I-210 letters and told to depart the United
States. During the last several years that I
worked, we no longer had a problem dealing with
undocumented aliens in the interior because we
were no longer allowed to work on any interior
enforcement operations.
FAILURE TO APPEAR FOR HEARINGS BY RELEASED ALIENS
A check with any INS District Office in the
United States will reveal boxes and boxes of
files belonging to those aliens who were told to
report to the nearest office at their destination
and who failed to appear. I would
estimate that there has been no effort to locate
95% of these aliens. They have been allowed
to simply disappear into the United States.
No one knows whether a number of these missing
persons are trained terrorists who will
eventually emerge to perpetuate more acts of
terrorism against innocent United States citizens.
LACK OF INTERIOR ENFORCEMENT
It is not that District Offices have been
derelict in trying to locate these people. Each
of the INS District Offices has one common major
problem -- a lack of manpower resources. Most
District INS Offices are able to operate on
strictly a limited reactive basis. They
cannot be proactive. It is common knowledge
that for all intents and purposes there is no
interior enforcement of immigration laws.
In most cases if you make it past the border and
are undetected or if you receive a temporary pass
to make it to the interior you are home free. The
District Offices do not have adequate numbers of
enforcement staff to do what they have been
tasked to do. The situation in the Seattle,
Washington and Portland, Oregon Districts has
been placed under even greater burden over the
last several years when the Border Patrol was
restricted from doing any interior enforcement
operations in areas that they had traditionally
worked. This has created “no
enforcement zones” and has also provided the
delusion that apprehensions in the Blaine Sector
have dropped for a positive reason.
FINAL CONCLUSONS
In closing I would like to
enter into the record my own conclusions
regarding the immigration mess that we as a
country find ourselves in. For over the
past two decades there has been a flood of
uncontrolled illegal immigration taking place in
the United States. This illegal immigration
has occurred by people slipping across our
borders and by people coming here as visitors or
students who have not gone back home. There has
been a bi-partisan neglect to really address this
problem. The common denominator in most
instances, which causes this flood of immigrants
is jobs. People slip across the border one
day, buy a fraudulent Social Security number on
the second day, and by the third day they are
gainfully employed. It is true that many of
these people are doing jobs that many American
citizens will not do, but it is also true that
you cannot wink and look the other way as an
undocumented migrant worker illegally crosses the
border and at the same time screen out terrorists.
Over the years there has been no one more
outspoken than I on the issue of putting
additional resources along the border. On April
14, 1999, I testified before the House Judiciary
Committee on this very subject. However, I
will also be the first to say that it will not
solve our immigration problems by just putting
additional agents and technology along our
borders. This is equivalent to placing
additional crewmen and a global positional system
on the Titanic. INS policy in this country
is a flooded, sinking ship. In order for
illegal immigration to come to a halt Congress
will have to shut off the job magnet. This will
mean Members of Congress will have to stand up to
the pressure of special interest groups that are
dependent on illegal aliens that slip across the
borders.
As I made reference to in my opening remarks I
believe that it is imperative that Congress
addresses the issue of mismanagement in the
headquarters division at INS. If a Border
Patrol Agent under my supervision were negligent
and lost a pair of $200.00 binoculars, he
was held accountable. He was disciplined
and was forced to make restitution. If a
headquarters manager allows millions of dollars
to be squandered on a worthless computer system
that will not work there is nothing done to him.
I believe that in most instances he is given
millions of additional dollars to try again.
I am especially perplexed as I read reports that
have come forth from the office of both the
present and past Inspector General for the
Department of Justice. Over the last decade
they have written and published many reports
outlining the mismanagement within INS but
nothing seems to change.
Over the past two months since the terrorist
attacks Congress and the media have done their
utmost to examine the Taliban and the outside
influences that caused September 11th
to happen. It is now time for Congress
and the media to turn their attention inward to
look at the root causes that allow terroristd to
arrive here. The majority of the system’s
breakdowns that have allowed this to happen lie
within the framework of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service.
Please take the time and effort to correct these
problems and restore effective immigration policy.
Again thank you for the opportunity of being here.
I would welcome any questions that the
Subcommittee may have.
|
