Best of a Bad Job

President Reagan did the right thing in permitting the Marshal Konev to set sail from American waters with a possibly reluctant crew member, Miroslav Medvid, still aboard. To have done otherwise would have been to invite retaliations that would disrupt the fragile international understandings that now protect international travel and commerce.

But there can be no excuse for the blundering of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in this case. The bungling seems part of a pattern of abuses of discretion and ineptness in the execution of rules that exposes both a weakness in policy and ineffective administration.

No one but Medvid may ever know precisely what his intentions were when he jumped from the Soviet ship into the Mississippi River, only to be forcefully returned to the ship by border agents--not once, but twice. From the moment he was first forced back aboard the vessel, however, his whole life was placed in jeopardy. It was an action so blindly insensitive, so utterly stupid, as to defy any explanation--especially the limp argument of immigration officials that there were language difficulties.

By the time Medvid was interviewed one final time by U.S. officials, however, he seems clearly to have decided to stay aboard. One can imagine the threats that probably coerced that change of intention. But the decision then was his, and the government of the United States had no choice at that point but to accept the seaman’s statement.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) articulated the indignation felt by most Americans, and the uneasiness also about the situation, when he intervened, issuing a subpoena on his authority as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. No stretch of the imagination, not even the fact that Medvid’s ship carried a cargo of grain, could give legal credibility or substance to the senator’s intervention. What he did was not only unacceptable but also downright dangerous. A Senate colleague put the matter in focus when he speculated as to how Helms would react were an American seaman facing subpoena from a Communist nation.

Officials of the immigration service have acknowledged errors in judgment. The Reagan Administration, nevertheless, has insisted that a clear and effective policy is in place regarding the handling of those seeking political asylum. Events, including the handling of refugees from Central America, do not substantiate that claim.

The task of the immigration service is overwhelming, given the flood of undocumented aliens into the United States, the widespread willingness of employers to shelter while they exploit those vulnerable people, the failure of Congress to act on legislation that would end the ambiguities and injustices that are now built into the whole problem. But that crisis circumstance makes all the more important clear policies affirming the nation’s claim to be a refuge for freedom, a land committed to equal justice.