So What About Naturalization? : Clinton budget struggles with thorny immigration issues

Give President Clinton and Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner credit. They have duly noted the national concern over illegal immigration--most clearly reflected by the vote in favor of California’s controversial Proposition 187 last year--and emphasized immigration law enforcement in the budget that Clinton sent to Congress this week.

But illegal immigration is such a complex phenomenon that it won’t be controlled by just tougher law enforcement. So what the INS bills as its “comprehensive strategy to fight illegal immigration” is still incomplete. To begin, it doesn’t include nearly enough money to help states with large immigrant populations deal with the impact on public services. The $550 million set aside for educating, providing emergency health care and incarcerating illegal immigrants could be easily spent in California alone.

Overall, Clinton’s fiscal 1996 budget would boost by $1 billion the amount the federal government could spend on the INS and related agencies like the U.S. Customs Service. That means the INS would be able to hire 700 more Border Patrol agents and 680 more inspectors for the nation’s ports of entry. And it means the immigration agency could continue with efforts to upgrade its equipment for the high-tech world of the 21st Century. That continues an admirable effort by Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to beef up what has traditionally been one of the federal government’s most underfunded and understaffed agencies.

But why do they keep giving short shrift to the naturalization arm of the INS? Revealingly, the INS’ detailed press release on the proposed budget mentions naturalization only in passing--in the final sentence. It states that Reno will “consult with Congress” to find money to pay for expediting naturalization and otherwise improve INS “customer services.” As almost anyone who has ever tried to deal with INS customer services can attest, they need much improvement, especially in regard to the hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants eligible for citizenship but caught up in a paperwork backlog. While not as dramatic as the problem of border control, the INS backlog merits continuing attention from the highest levels of government.

Another facet of the proposed INS budget is an effort to begin shifting the focus of immigration law enforcement from the border to the workplaces where illegal immigrants are employed. It will be useful to see whether the federal government can more effectively enforce a 1986 ban on the hiring of illegal immigrants by sending out more INS and Labor Department inspectors to monitor the farms and factories where most immigrants work. Tougher enforcement of laws governing the workplace might at least keep some illegal workers from being exploited by unscrupulous employers. However, we continue to believe the INS would get more bang for its buck by putting most of its limited manpower on the border and at ports of entry.

Which raises the question of where the Administration’s laudable plan to “reinvent government” along the border has gone. Two years ago Vice President Al Gore’s study on government consolidation and efficiency dusted off the eminently reasonable idea of merging the Border Patrol, Customs Service and other border agencies into a single entity. That idea still has merit and will have to be revisited if all of this country’s border control agencies are to operate at peak effectiveness in a world where international trade and migration are not just routine but fundamental to the nation’s prosperity.