INS Commissioner Meissner Says She’ll Quit Next Month

Doris Meissner, who played a key role in the U.S. government’s efforts to return Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez to his homeland, said Wednesday she is resigning after seven years as commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Meissner, a political appointee who would have to resign anyway when the new president takes office in January, said she would depart in mid-November and return to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank where she previously studied immigration policy.

Meissner announced the decision in January that 6-year-old Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba. The boy, who survived a shipwreck that took the lives of his mother and 10 others, then became the focus of a legal battle and custody war pitting his father and the U.S. government on one side, and his Miami relatives on the other side.

The three-page announcement that Meissner was leaving made no mention of the Elian case.

During her tenure, the immigration agency has often been criticized by Justice Department investigators for problems with its computers and other automation programs. The INS has also been faulted for management problems in some programs.

“It has not been easy, and there is still much to be done,” Meissner said. “But the advances the agency has made, at times under the most difficult circumstances, have made me proud to be part of the INS team and grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”