Paper Tear-Up Snafu Hits INS Facility

The Immigration and Naturalization Service is investigating allegations that documents mailed to the agency’s massive processing center in Orange County may have been improperly shredded by a database contractor working for the INS.

The agency has suspended all shredding at its Laguna Niguel service center and is expanding telephone-inquiry services to field calls from people from California and three other Western states who fear that applications for political asylum and other paperwork may have been destroyed.

“We are taking this matter very, very seriously,” said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the INS regional headquarters. “The kind of work that’s being done at this service center certainly affects tens of thousands of people.”

The INS is also planning to ask some applicants whose paperwork may have vanished to send another set of documents. The agency said it will work with attorneys and immigrant advocates to help reconstruct people’s files if necessary.

The INS spokeswoman stressed that no definitive proof of illegal destruction of government property or potential motive had been discovered, or how many documents have been affected. The service center in Laguna Niguel--one of four such INS facilities nationwide--routinely and properly shreds considerable paperwork after it has been processed.

The shredding incident is the second occasion in the last two months that the work of private INS contractors, hired in recent years to improve efficiency, has been questioned. In March, an INS contract facility in Kentucky mailed visa approvals to two of the 19 Middle Eastern hijackers who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, unleashing criticism from the White House, Congress and elsewhere.

The INS has been harshly assailed since Sept. 11. Congress is poised to abolish the agency.

The Laguna Niguel service center is the initial entry point to the INS bureaucracy for multitudes of applicants from California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. Each week, the office is the recipient of an average of 60,000 pieces of mail, including a wide array of completed INS forms, among them applications for political asylum, citizenship, visa extensions, work permits and petitions for relatives to immigrate to the United States.

The mailings often include detailed affidavits and other crucial papers documenting petitioners’ claims. Asylum applications may run to hundreds of pages, encompassing character references and other documentation. Lawyers know not to send originals, but many individuals do not.

Federal authorities have tried to centralize paperwork at the service centers in recent years to help improve efficiency at an agency already notorious for losing files, outdated technology and a backlog that has reached about 5 million applications nationwide.

The investigation of contract operations at Laguna Niguel was launched by the INS’ Office of Internal Audit last month when two agency employees relayed suspicions of improper shredding. One knowledgeable source said the INS officials recovered about 90,000 pieces of mail apparently destined for the shredder. Another source said several private contract employees had come forward with reports of questionable shredding, and that one worker had been placed on administrative leave with pay.

The INS inquiry is focusing on the activities of Datatrac Information Services, a Texas-based firm employed in Laguna Niguel, Kice said. A company spokesman who declined to give his name said the firm’s contract with the government prohibited speaking to the media about its work.

Datatrac and a second company, SEI Technology Inc., based in Virginia, are both working as subcontractors to a third firm, JHM Research & Development of Maryland. The INS awarded JHM a $325-million contract in January 2001 to staff the nation’s four regional immigration service centers.

John Macklin, president of JHM, declined to comment about the investigation.

At the service facilities, all three firms have been collaborating in an effort to help modernize the INS’ antiquated records regimen and manage the blizzard of paperwork that arrives each day. Among the 1,550 employees at the Laguna Niguel facility, between 500 and 700 are contract staffers assisting with data management.

The contracted data processors typically open mail, enter details into the agency’s computer system, forward pertinent documents to appropriate INS offices and process enclosed checks, which can range from about $50 to more than $2,000 per applicant. Nonessential paperwork is designated for the shredder.

The three private firms took over in Laguna Niguel in July after resolution of a legal dispute involving the former contractor, said one knowledgeable person who asked not to be named. Confronting the new contractors were substantial backlogs of mail, which workers have been trying to reduce ever since, according to the person’s account.

Some immigration attorneys who file frequently in Laguna Niguel say they have noticed longer delays in hearing back from the agency in recent months, but assumed that was another sign of an overwhelmed INS.

“I frankly figured the agency has so many applications, it was just buried,” said Carl Shusterman, a private immigration lawyer in Los Angeles and former INS staff attorney. “But this [the alleged shredding] shows there’s some major flaws in the contracting system that’s being used.”

Because of the ongoing investigation, the INS says it will be prepared to handle additional telephone inquiries starting Monday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at its Laguna Niguel offices, (949) 831-8427. Petitioners who have not received a receipt from the INS for applications sent to the service center within the last 30 days can call and check.