Experts Picked to Help Reform INS : Immigration: The attorney general goes outside the agency to recruit new managers. He hopes to blunt a critical congressional report.

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh named a panel of outside managers Tuesday to help reform the Immigration and Naturalization Service, attempting to get a jump on a congressional report that is expected to direct new criticism at the embattled agency.

Citing passage of a sweeping new immigration law in the waning hours of the 101st Congress, Thornburgh said the immigration agency “must be better able to respond to its mission in a more efficient manner.”

In announcing the unusual move of recruiting outside managers to assist INS Commissioner Gene McNary, a Thornburgh appointee, the attorney general pointed to the findings of an internal audit of the agency that he ordered in December, 1988.

The audit by the Justice Department’s management division found the agency to be riddled with mismanagement, typified by missing documents, massive case backlogs and chronic failures to conduct background checks on applicants for citizenship.

The attorney general decided to create the management panel after Justice Department officials saw a draft copy of a scathing report on INS by the General Accounting Office, the watchdog auditing arm of Congress, a department official said.

The GAO report is said to focus on what a senior Justice Department official described as the “inherent conflict between INS’ service (to immigrants) and enforcement functions,” as well as shortcomings in its budget processes, a lack of internal controls and failure to use modern management tools, particularly data processing.

Thornburgh, apparently attempting to soften the blow for his appointee, said many of the problems existed before McNary was named to head the agency in October, 1989.

The management panel, which is to assist McNary “in identifying and implementing reforms,” will be headed by Norman Carlson, who drew praise when he ran the Bureau of Prisons for 17 years.

Other members include Tony Moscato, deputy assistant attorney general for administration, and Don Wortman, director of federal programs for the National Academy of Public Administration and a former executive with the Social Security Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency.

They will be joined by other management experts from the Justice Department and elsewhere in government and private organizations, Thornburgh said.

The new law, enacted Oct. 27, raised the annual ceiling on the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country by about 40%, with the increase to be allocated in part to newcomers admitted on the basis of their job skills.

The law will allot 700,000 immigrant visas annually for three years and 675,000 annually after that. Legal immigration currently is limited to about 500,000 a year.

Of the 700,000 visas to be issued under the new law, 465,000 are reserved for family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Visas for skilled immigrants who have received job offers in the United States will increase to 140,000 a year from the current level of 54,000.

“With the passage of the landmark Immigration Act of 1990, it is important that INS be in a stronger position to fulfill its new mandate under the statute,” Thornburgh said.

The internal Justice Department audit ordered by Thornburgh was regarded as instrumental in forcing the replacement of Alan C. Nelson, who headed the agency during the Ronald Reagan Administration.

The audit, which Nelson dismissed as “an accumulation of a lot of picky stuff,” found that INS officials were unable to locate more than 23,000 certificates of citizenship and naturalization that, if stolen, could be sold for as much as $115 million.

Even after the problem was pointed out to INS officials, they did not take steps to correct it or ensure that it would not recur, the audit said.