An Outsider for the INS

Among immigration specialists, the initial reaction to President Bush’s nomination of James W. Ziglar, the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, to head the Immigration and Naturalization Service was skepticism. How could someone who knew little about immigration head the troubled agency in charge of it?

Earlier this month at Ziglar’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the reaction was quite different. The nominee was praised by both the Democratic majority and Republican minority leaders. He is expected to win the endorsement of the committee and a floor vote on his confirmation before Congress recesses next month.

The INS, a part of the Department of Justice, has always been torn between its two duties--closing the border to foreigners who would enter the country illegally and welcoming foreigners who qualify to enter legally. More often than not, the agency has leaned too far in favor of border enforcement; this has continued even as the backlog of citizenship applications has grown.

Bush is well aware of INS problems. As a candidate, he even proposed splitting the agency in two, with one wing devoted to processing legal immigrants while the other focused on border enforcement. One of Ziglar’s jobs as INS commissioner could be to determine how viable Bush’s proposal is.

Ziglar has a reputation as a tough but fair manager. In 1999, soon after he was sworn in as sergeant-at-arms, he was charged with helping organize and implement the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. His challenge was to be evenhanded, and he seems to have succeeded. In April of this year, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democratic member on the Judiciary Committee, declared, “I don’t think there is a member who would suggest that he was anything other than totally impartial.”

The nominee’s experience in the private sector includes work for two law firms and in the financial services industry. He did a brief stint at the Justice Department and was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. He was an assistant secretary at the Interior Department in 1987-88.

His knowledge of immigration issues is limited, but that’s no fatal flaw. It has not been unusual for INS heads to start their job lacking expertise on immigration. It is a post that requires a strong understanding of management and politics, and Ziglar has demonstrated both.