Immigration

By ADAM COHEN

If you're using a forged passport while committing a terrorist act, be sure to carry supporting documentation with the same name, and have a good cover story for why you have the passport. That diabolical tourist tip was among the terrorist how-tos contained in a trove of handwritten notes found earlier this month in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, abandoned by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

It's hardly news that the immigration system is a mess. Foreign nationals have long been slipping across the border with bogus papers, and visitors who arrive in the U.S. legitimately often overstay their legal welcomes with impunity. But since Sept. 11, it's become clear that terrorists have been shrewdly factoring the weaknesses of our system into their plans. In addition to their mastery of forging passports, at least three of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were here on expired visas. That's been a safe bet until now. The Immigration and Naturalization Service lacks the resources, and apparently the inclination, to keep tabs on the estimated 2 million foreigners who have intentionally overstayed their welcome.

But this laxness toward immigration fraud may be about to change. Congress has already taken some modest steps. The U.S.A. Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy, requires the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department and the INS to share more data, which will make it easier to stop watchlisted terrorists at the border. And since the September attacks, the INS has started feeding into the FBI's crime database information about aliens who have received final deportation orders but failed to show up for their exit trips; so if they show up in the legal system--even for a minor traffic offense--they can be nabbed and booted.

The Justice Department has announced its own plans for a legal assault on illegal immigration. Just last week, it indicted Tyson Foods on charges of conspiring to smuggle aliens, in the largest such case in history. Though no one is accusing the Arkansas chicken-processing giant of terror links, the case sends a message that in the post-Sept. 11 world, curbing immigration violations of all kinds will be a top government priority.

But what's really needed, critics of the status quo say, is even tougher laws and more resources aimed at tightening up border security. Reformers are calling for a rollback of rules that hamstring law enforcement, like a visitor-friendly 45-min. cap on how long arriving passengers can be inspected when they arrive in the U.S., mandated by Congress in more carefree times. They also want the INS to hire hundreds more border patrol agents and investigators to keep illegal immigrants out and to track them down once they're here. Reformers also want to see the INS set up a database to monitor, for the first time, whether visa holders actually leave the country when they are required to. "You can't secure the front door and then leave the back door completely open," says Susan Martin, director of the Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration.

All of these proposed changes were part of a sweeping new border-security bill that passed the House of Representatives but died in the Senate last week. Before Sept. 11, legislation of this kind had been stymied by two powerful lobbies: universities, which rely on tuition from foreign students who could be kept out by the new law, and business, which relies on foreigners for cheap labor. Since the attacks, they've backed off. The bill would have passed this time but for congressional machinations and is expected to be reintroduced and to pass next year.

Also on the agenda for next year: a proposal, backed by some influential lawmakers, to split the INS into two agencies--a good cop that would tend to service functions like processing citizenship papers and a bad cop that would concentrate on border inspections, deportation and other functions. One reason for the division, supporters say, is that the INS has in recent years become too focused on serving tourists and immigrants. After this year's tragedy, they say, the INS should pay more attention to serving a different population: the millions of ordinary Americans who rely on the nation's border security to protect them from terrorist attacks.

--By Adam Cohen. Reported by Viveca Novak/Washington

With reporting by Viveca Novak/Washington