The INS? It's their mandate.
Panel I
Joseph Greene, Assistant Commissioner for Investigations, INS: Greene said enforcing the nation's immigration laws in the interior of the U.S. has always been exceptionally demanding and September 11th placed even greater demands on INS agents. Greene noted that with only 2000 special agents focused on the interior strategy, the goal of the INS is to frame a strategy that targets the infrastructure which supported illegal migration, whether it be a smuggling organization, a fraud conspiracy, an employer involved in widespread immigration violations or a local law enforcement problem created by the arrival of illegal immigrants into a community. Greene outlined several INS interior enforcement initiatives that have taken place in the last decade, but he said the INS is hampered by lack of special agents. Greene said, "I have 1,944 on-duty agents, including supervisors. There are more sworn officers in the Dallas police department than I have special agents in the world."
He continued to break that number down stating, "of that number, 112 of them are assigned to the joint terrorism task force, 155 are assigned to the anti-smuggling units in border patrol sectors, 177 are assigned to OCDETF and 197 are assigned to quick response teams. On any given day, the best I can field is approximately 1,365 special agents to work on interior enforcement," Greene said. Greene concluded saying that this reality forces INS field managers to make difficult decisions every day about how best to deploy agents in the interest of homeland security.