- Millions of illegal aliens armed with bogus documents
enter the United States each year through the nation's 300 ports of entry
because of inadequate screening methods by federal immigration officials
at the country's airports and border checkpoints, a little-publicized study
says.
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- Commissioned by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service, the study concluded that between 2.95 million and 5.45 million
illegal aliens cross undetected every year into the country through guarded
ports of entry ó with about one in every nine illegal aliens being
detained.
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- The total does not include an estimated 3 million to
5 million illegal aliens who annually cross into the United States through
unguarded areas along the border.
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- "A fair number of people are crossing into the United
States each year, much higher than anyone expected," said Palmer Morrel-Samuels,
a former University of Michigan research psychologist who conducted the
four-month study for the INS. "The problem is dramatic and will continue,
since the priority on stopping illegal immigration has been low.
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- "The solution will require a fair amount of time
and resources," he said, adding that the study also put to rest a
common perception that terrorists sneak into the United States through
unguarded border areas with only what they can carry.
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- "This study suggests they did neither," he
said. "It suggests they came into the country carrying all the bags
they wanted and presented documents to INS inspectors, who looked them
over for about a minute and then said, 'Welcome to the United States.'"
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- The study said INS inspectors typically spent "a
minute or two" examining passports, visas or border-crossing cards
before granting admission to a noncitizen traveler during an initial review
process. It said random backup checks by the agency to evaluate the inspectors'
accuracy showed that the inspectors had a "very low" rate of
success.
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- Mr. Morrel-Samuels said the study involved a check of
individuals who already had been approved by INS inspectors for entry.
He said they had presented passports or border-crossing cards and had been
welcomed into the United States. After the individuals presented their
documentation, Mr. Morrel-Samuels and others who worked with him asked
for a "secondary, far-more-rigorous interview that lasted 20 to 30
minutes."
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- Although the study made no specific recommendations,
Mr. Morrel-Samuels said INS personnel have to be moved from inspection
lanes to desks where they can have immediate access to computers with databases
to check those people seeking to enter the United States. He said his secondary
inspections found several people with forged documents and criminal records.
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- "Today's problems and today's solutions call for
more modern methods," he said. "The decision to allow someone
entry into the United States should not be a judgment made in a minute
or two and based largely on intuition."
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- While the study concluded that a relatively small percent
of travelers were improperly granted entry at each of the ports of entry,
it said that when compared with the "actual number of travelers, rather
than the proportion, the picture is more sobering."
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- It said the INS "missed several million inadmissible
travelers" because of existing screening procedures and, as a result,
between 2.95 million and 5.45 million illegal aliens who should have been
denied entry were allowed into the United States.
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- INS spokesman Russ Bergeron referred inquiries about
the study to other agency officials, who did not return calls for comment.
He said only that the lengthy study concluded that if the INS had more
time to spend with those people trying to enter the United States, more
illegal aliens could be identified.
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- Mr. Bergeron said the study had been shared with some
news outlets, although he did not elaborate.
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- But Mr. Morrel-Samuels, president of Employee Motivation
& Performance Assessment Inc., said the study found its way only into
an obscure trade journal and was never released to other news outlets despite
several requests he made of the agency to do so. He said, however, that
the INS should not have been "embarrassed" by the findings, because
"immigration control has never been a high priority and INS has never
had the necessary resources to do the job."
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- David Ray, spokesman for the Federation of American Immigration
Reform, said the group obtained a copy of the study after being told by
Mr. Morrel-Samuels of its "shocking findings." He said the INS
had refused to make the document public.
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- "INS sought to hush the study because the agency
didn't want the public to know how vulnerable we are," Mr. Ray said.
"The report highlights the need for strong entry controls and real
interior enforcement so that illegal aliens in the United States can be
found and deported.
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- "The study shows that millions of illegal aliens
are walking through our front door every year, whether at a port of entry
or illegally jumping a fence," he said.
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- More than 500 million travelers enter the United States
yearly at the country's established ports of entry after a brief interview
with an INS inspector, the study said. It found that 47 of every 5,614
travelers were erroneously granted entry and that the INS intercepted between
9.3 percent and 16 percent of those attempting illegal entry.
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- "Research suggests that illegal immigrants constitute
a surprisingly large portion of the current U.S. population, a trend with
important political, legal, clinical, cultural and occupational ramifications,"
the study said. "But despite considerable interest, no one has a precise
measurement of how many illegal immigrants enter the United States annually
by evading detection at an airport or traffic checkpoint."
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- The study included random checks at 20 ports of entry.
High-volume ports were sampled five times a day, low-volume ports once
a day, and intermediate-volume ports were sampled three times a day. Every
inspection lane at every minute of every hour when the port of entry had
sufficient staff and a sufficient volume of travelers was included in the
sampling frame, it said.
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- "Although there is much the current work cannot
tell us, there is a good deal it does allow us to specify with a fair degree
of precision," the study said, adding that the information collected
showed that "enhanced vigilance" at the country's established
ports of entry was associated with "better training, stronger organizational
commitment and higher levels of employee motivation."
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- http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021205-4571356.htm
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