"The INS is dead, long live the INS"
Frequent readers know that one of my favorite targets is the dangerous and scandalous incompetence of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the immigration "court" system. Well today is the last day for the INS, but I'm not having a party.

The mere mention of its acronym -- INS -- frightens foreigners, angers conservatives, and embarrasses government officials.

Beset by huge backlogs and bad record keeping, the Immigration and Naturalization Service came to symbolize government inefficiency. In the past, it has underestimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the country by 5 million, and granted tourist visas to 13 of the 19 terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But after tomorrow, the 112-year-old agency will cease to exist, its job divided among three new agencies. In a private ceremony held in the nation's capital yesterday, officials handed the furled blue-and-white INS flag to an archivist, forever retiring its name.

Though few tears are likely to be shed for the end of INS, critics are saying the old problems will resurface in the new system.

INS ''was an extremely dysfunctional agency and I don't see anything in the works to make the new structure less dysfunctional,'' said Joan Friedland, immigration policy lawyer at the National Immigration Law Center, a policy organization based in Los Angeles. ''The changes take effect March 1 and there's still no clear indication of how it's going to work.''

A major reconstitution is underway, affecting INS' 37,000 employees and the millions of people the agency serves. Its job will be done by three bureaus of the new Department of Homeland Security.

Here's the new plan:

The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services will handle services such as citizenship applications, asylum claims and employment petitions.

Enforcement of the laws will be divided between two new agencies. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection will assume the INS function at the airports and ports, as well as customs duties. This also will include patrolling the border.

The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement will handle the internal enforcement, including deportations and investigations of smuggling rings.

Swell - BCIS, BCBP, and BICE. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic won't keep the ship from going down.

Coincidentally, a NYC official testified yesterday before Congress about a brutal rape case that I mentioned in December:

Red tape at the Immigration and Naturalization Service is preventing police from reporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes, a New York City official said Thursday.

The result has been that criminals who could be deported have been allowed to remain in the country, and in some cases, go on to commit violent crimes.

New York City's Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt testified Thursday before a House subcommittee on immigration to answer questions surrounding the rape of a woman in a park in the borough of Queens in December.

Four of the five men charged in the case were found to be illegal immigrants, and three of those had been previously arrested.

Feinblatt said the INS is hard to reach whenever a New York police officer tries to refer a suspected illegal immigrant to them.

He presented an internal INS memo showing the agency requires any such referrals to be submitted in writing, by a high-ranking police superior, and instructs INS employees to inform the requesting officer of the numerous costs of jailing and transportation that could be incurred by the local department if they persist with their request.

Well that's an incentive! But last time I checked, local police departments weren't responsible for guarding the borders. Why are they footing the bill for criminal illegals? Why are local governments footing any bill for illegal aliens at all beyond a phone call to the nearest INS BICE office to arrange a pickup?

From Andrea Peyser's opinion piece on the testimony in today's NY Post:

"If I had a choice between root canal and dealing with INS, it's a coin toss," a law-enforcement source familiar with this case told me.

He added, "The INS don't want to be notified, and the police don't want to notify them. There's plenty of blame to go around." Has terrorism taught us nothing? We can no longer allow criminals to hide behind the protected status of illegal aliens.

While prevention of terrorism is a good argument, there is no reason why the citizens of the USA should be burdened by illegal aliens, period.