The INS Gives Us All a Bad Name : Immigration: A sting, using deliberate deceit to entrap those seeking legal entry, was both stupid and wrong.

You would think, in this cynical age, that we would not be shocked by government deceit. But the recent sting operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Diego proves that government can still outrage.

The INS sent more than 600 non-citizens a letter on INS stationery, inviting them to come to pick up a work permit. The letter stated that the permits were available under the “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1993,” but only if the addressee came forward immediately.

In fact, there is no “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1993”; those who came in for work permits were arrested, and many were deported. The letter was a deliberate deceit by the INS, which claimed that the operation targeted people already under judges’ orders of deportation--a claim disputed by several who received the letters.

This sting operation, run locally but approved by Washington, trampled on our basic ideal of honesty in government. It may have been legal, but it was stupid and it was wrong.

It’s not that government agents should never lie. Law enforcement is a dirty business and deceit is an important investigative tool. Undercover investigations of everything from terrorist bombings to narcotics trafficking to political corruption depend on the duplicitous skills of police officers and informants. Law-enforcement officials must often play bad guy--and lie vigorously in the process--to uncover criminality. The critical distinction is that undercover agents generally do not use government identity as part of their disguise; government credentials are not likely to win the trust of the criminally inclined. This points up one of the awful ironies of the INS sting: It succeeded with those most committed to and most trusting in American law. It makes a sucker of those who want to obey the law.

Government also avoids this kind of deception for fear of public backlash. Again we have a nasty irony: A federal agency that requires public cooperation to be effective, yet is widely distrusted, engages in a program certain to provoke maximum hostility and non-cooperation.

Consider what would happen if the INS tactic were commonplace. Imagine if you received a summons for jury duty, and when you showed up at court the police said: “Surprise!” and arrested you for an unpaid traffic ticket. Would you ever trust a government representative again?

There is third, more personal reason to protest this kind of deceit. It besmirches our own good name. When government acts in its official capacity--when it says, as the INS letters did, that this is the United States of America speaking, it trades on the good name of every citizenin this country. When the INS lies this way, it suggests that we are a nation of liars.

You may object that this makes a moral mountain out of a law-enforcement molehill--that the ends were justified, and if the means were dubious, they were not all that different from those commonly used and approved. I disagree.

The argument that the means justify the ends--always susceptible of abuse--is particularly dangerous in law enforcement. Justice depends as much on how the government investigates, adjudicates and punishes as on the result achieved. If we abandon law, or the principles upon which it is based, we will have lost the war, regardless of the battle’s outcome.

Nor does the fact that we permit some government lies commit us to approving all government deceit. We can punish murder and still excuse killings in self-defense. As is usually true in moral controversy, the difference between right and wrong lies in the details.

Even assuming that a legitimate law-enforcement goal was served by the INS letter, such deception should be forbidden. The government should be prohibited from using its name--our name--to deceive.