Posted on 03/16/2002 3:15:49 PM PST by vannrox
March 16, 2002
ASHINGTON, March 15 — Reeling from the embarrassment of mailing visa extensions this week to two dead Sept. 11 hijackers, the Immigration and Naturalization Service announced a major management shakeup today.
Michael Pearson, the head of all field operations and widely recognized as the agency's third-ranking official, was relieved of his job and will be reassigned, a Justice Department official said. The agency's director of international affairs, Jeffrey L. Weiss, will also be reassigned.
In all, four senior officials responsible for immigration services, policies and enforcement were replaced, officials said.
"The breakdown in communication, highlighted by this week's events, at the I.N.S. is unacceptable and will not be allowed," James W. Ziglar, the commissioner of immigration and naturalization, said in a statement. "These changes begin the process of accountability as we move forward with restructuring the I.N.S."
The agency's notice approving the student visas for Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, received this week by a Florida flight school six months after the attacks, ignited an uproar from the White House to Capitol Hill and renewed calls to overhaul the agency or abolish it.
Justice Department officials said that the personnel changes made today were part of Mr. Ziglar's larger plan to separate the agency's service and enforcement functions, which often conflict with each other.
"These changes were part of a broader restructuring plan that were in the works," a Justice Department official said. "This week's debacle was the impetus to move up our timetable to remedy the immediate needs." The service is an agency of the Justice Department.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who vowed on Wednesday to hold individuals accountable for the visa blunder, also sent a letter to Congress today asking lawmakers to give the agency authority to fire people for misconduct or incompetence.
The service had such authority from 1998 to 2001, but Congress did not renew it in this year's budget.
In a letter to Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Virginia Republican who heads the House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing immigration matters, Mr. Ashcroft said that "it is essential that I have the authority to quickly discipline or terminate individuals for acts of negligence, mismanagement or disregard for Department of Justice policies."
A committee spokesman said the committee was sympathetic to Mr. Ashcroft's request but would review any proposal "to make sure they can't fire anyone willy-nilly."
The immigration agency, one of the fastest-growing federal agencies with 35,000 employees and a $5.6 billion budget this year, has long suffered from antiquated computers and management turmoil. Immigrants and employers have complained of huge paperwork backlogs and surly service, problems that Mr. Ziglar has promised to fix.
But the visa extensions this week represented the last straw for many While House and Justice Department officials.
Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi trained at Huffman Aviation International in Venice, Fla., and are believed to have flown the two planes that destroyed the World Trade Center.
The immigration service said on Tuesday that the two men were initially notified last summer of the change in their visa status to student from visitor, but that the "secondary notification" to the school did not go out until after the paperwork had been done manually by a contractor.
On Capitol Hill today, lawmakers praised the shakeup, but insisted that the agency responsible for both patrolling thousands of miles of borders and monitoring millions of foreigners needed a total revamping.
"I loudly applaud Commissioner Ziglar on the strong first step he took today," said Representative Mark Foley, a Florida Republican whose district borders the Venice flight school. "But the job cannot stop here. There needs to be a complete, top-to- bottom scrubbing of an agency completely sullied."
The dismissals represent Mr. Ziglar's biggest management reshuffling since he left his job as sergeant- at-arms of the Senate seven months ago to assume the helm of the immigration service.
The most significant change involves Johnny Williams, the agency's Western regional director, replacing Mr. Pearson, a former Army officer who joined the immigration service in 1997. Overseeing more than 30,000 employees, Mr. Pearson was ultimately responsible for all activities in the field, including the mailings that certified the hijackers' visa status.
Mr. Pearson did not respond to messages left with his office or the agency's command center tonight.
Renee Harris, the border patrol's second-ranking official and highest- ranking woman, will succeed Mr. Weiss as acting director of international affairs, which oversees all refugee and asylum programs, as well as the agency's overseas offices.
Two other changes were intended to bolster the agency's services and enforcement duties, officials said. Janis Sposato, a career Justice Department official, was named a top official for immigration services.
Michael Cronin, a senior official overseeing the agency's programs, was named assistant commissioner for inspections.
Former immigration officials said that moving Mr. Cronin to oversee inspections would also let Stuart Anderson, the agency's top official for plans and policy, assert more influence over immigration programs.
Along with Mr. Ziglar, Mr. Anderson, an immigration specialist and former top Senate Republican aide, is one of the few political appointees at the agency.
FREEP this poll:
NATIONAL ID CARD - Should the federal government require us all
to carry electronic identification?
I'll believe it when I see it. No one was fired for this, that's probably why not too many people are talking about it. Govt. worker = incompetence now days. Same O', Same O'.
It appears AG Ashcroft can move quickly. Good. But he ought to 'discipline or terminate' himself for negligence, as he allows the criminals at Loral to walk away in the matter of missle guidance technology transfers to the Chinese while fining the shareholders $millions.
When he is done with his self-discipline for that, assuming he did not terminate himself, he can discipline himself again for failing to seek justice for the lynx fur hoax or the back-dated BIA documents.
He remains a disgrace.
Yes = 13%
No = 84%
HA!HA!
Thank You! Couldn't have said it better. Watch out for the die-hard current administration worshipers, though. Got a flame-suit?
Per the screen name of one of the FR posters, if there are not "heads on pikes," the message was not sent to the beauracracy in general that people who are dumb as a box of rocks should be seeking employment elsewhere than in OUR GOVERNMENT.
We're waiting....
Congressman Billybob
"Approaching the Heliopause from 1776." Next is, "The Truman Factor."
I think this answers your question about why no one got fired, they are protected by Civil Service rules.
Can't be just let go without a drawout process!
America's at war. This is no time to be screwing around. Let's do the right thing.
What I want to know, where's the investigation into the biggest intelligence failure in US history? Why aren't any heads rolling for 9-11?
I agree that accountability is needed. However, in this instance it may not be a federal bureaucrat that needs to be held accountable; rather, a private contractor appears to be where the buck stops (or didn't stop) in this instance.
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