Posted on 3/19/2002, 11:05:09 PM by Love America or move to ......
INS critics take aim at libertarians at the top
By Marcus Stern COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
March 19, 2002
WASHINGTON – When James Ziglar took the helm of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for President Bush, he turned to a little-known activist named Stuart Anderson to guide the agency on policy.
Now some critics are questioning whether Anderson, who has strong libertarian views on immigration, and Ziglar, who also has described himself as a libertarian, have an appropriate political philosophy for steering the agency in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Putting a libertarian in charge of the INS is like asking Gloria Steinem to take over all of the anti-abortion efforts in the United States," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., chairman of the congressional immigration reform caucus. "Libertarians are for open borders . . . I think it's idiotic."
Despite being of the same party as the president, Tancredo is one of Ziglar's fiercest critics on Capitol Hill. Last week, he called on Bush to fire Ziglar after revelations that the INS had sent out visa approval notices posthumously for two of the Sept. 11 terrorists.
INS spokesman Joe Karpinski said yesterday that Ziglar does not embrace the entire libertarian agenda, citing legalizing drugs and open borders as examples where he parts company with the libertarian laissez-faire social philosophy.
"If you're talking about open borders, that is not what he (Ziglar) is for," Karpinski said. "He has not gone up to the Congress asking for it."
When Ziglar uses the word "libertarian," Karpinski said, he means that "we should always be cautious about giving up individual rights."
The debate highlights a growing schism since Sept. 11 between Republicans who believe immigration should be restricted and Republicans who believe it should be expanded.
Karpinski cited two actions to underscore Ziglar's commitment to enforcement since Sept. 11:
Placing the names of people who have not complied with final orders of deportation in a federal law enforcement database.
Proposing to divide the INS into separate enforcement and service branches.
Neither Ziglar nor Anderson was available for comment yesterday.
Anderson was described privately by several key Republican immigration staffers as an "open border, Wall Street Journal" Republican. By that, they meant he espouses a pro-business, small-government libertarian view of immigration as an unambiguous economic boon to the nation. The view also embraces the free-market argument that labor should be just as free to cross international boundaries as capital, and it tends to minimize distinctions between legal and illegal immigrants.
Previously, Anderson worked for former Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., when he was chairman of the Senate immigration subcommittee. Together, they opposed legislation to speed development of a system to track people crossing the border. Echoing arguments of business leaders along the Canadian border, they said the system would stymie lawful cross-border commerce.
Before working for Abraham, who now is the nation's energy secretary, Anderson was an immigration policy analyst for the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, where he lobbied for loosening immigration policies and laws.
"Stuart's brief career has been devoted to obstructing immigration law," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that generally supports tighter immigration laws. "And now he's helping run the agency whose mandate he's denigrated. . . . The first analogy that comes to mind is the fox in the henhouse."
Krikorian cited Anderson's efforts with the Senate immigration subcommittee to "water down" legislation to create an electronic border "entry-exit system" and visa controls, both now high priorities in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Dan Griswold, who holds Anderson's old job as immigration policy expert at the CATO institute, said Anderson's opposition was based on skepticism about the INS' ability to develop and implement the technology.
Of Anderson, he said: "He's a great asset to the INS. I'd rather have someone who understands the benefits of immigration administering the law than someone who is fundamentally hostile to it."
Likening immigration restrictions to liquor Prohibition in the early 20th century, Griswold said, "Enforcing a bad law is always going to be a headache, and perhaps having people (like Anderson) who better understand the immigration issue will help us move toward a law that is both consistent with our economic interests and human liberty and also is enforceable."
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
I like it!
Costa Rica? Portugal?
Yeah, I can hardly wait to start my new job in Bangladesh at a whole $2.00 a day.
What, did they get a raise? .. That's inflationary!
Would you like to have a surgeon making $0.35 per day do your angioplasty?
Or walk under a bridge designed by an engineer who gets paid in CrackerJack tokens?
Iceland? New Zealand? Switzerland?
It seems to me there is a third issue here and that is the enforcement of visa requirements. My wife,who is from Thailand, got her masters degree at Arizona. Now this has been a good twenty five years ago but she had to secure a visa prior to coming. The requirements included an interview at the US Embassy in Bangkok and her providing documents as to the legitimacy of her schooling, financial stability and ability to pay or scholarship, and that she was not a threat to the USA. Just a few years ago, my nephew got his MBA at Harvard and went through the same proceedure prior to leaving Thailand. We gave a retirement present of a trip here to my wife's cousins and it was very difficult for them to ge a visa as they are not rich and had trouble convincing the embassy to give them a visa. They finally had to bring in copies of their property deeds, pensions, etc.. To all of our minds, there is something very wrong with a system that allows Me Atta to acquire a visa in the way he and his companions did. It seems that the means to stop the abuse is there but not being used. INS incompetence?? Selective enforcement?? Different agendas??
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