Congressional Panel Touts Legislation to Split Apart Immigration Agency.

Byline: Wayne Washington

Apr. 10--WASHINGTON--Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner James Ziglar did not put up much of a fight yesterday, as members of the House of Representatives tore into his battered agency and touted legislation that would break it apart.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee barely noted the rule changes proposed Monday by the INS and instead promoted legislation they are scheduled to begin writing today that would spell the end of the agency as it currently operates.

Ziglar sat quietly during the hearing, absorbing the verbal assaults members launched on the agency while they avoided blaming him personally for high-profile INS shortcomings.

"If there is one thing that every member of the committee can agree on, it's that the Immigration and Naturalization Services is inefficient, ineffective, and, in many respects, incompetent," said Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the top Democrat on the committee.

Conyers has joined the Republican chairman of the committee, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, in offering legislation that would split the agency into two separate entities, one that would enforce immigration laws and another that would provide service to visitors.

Ziglar said the Bush administration is "silent" on the legislation, but the commissioner did note one objection to the broad power given to a new associate attorney general for immigration affairs. He said the legislation does not draw lines of authority clearly enough.