Criminal Aliens: INS' Efforts to Identify and Remove Imprisoned Aliens
Need to be Improved (Testimony, 07/15/97, GAO/T-GGD-97-154).

GAO discussed the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP), focusing on: (1)
the extent to which deportable criminal aliens were included in the IHP;
(2) the extent to which the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
completed deportation hearings for deportable aliens during their time
in prison or after their release; and (3) INS' efforts to enhance IHP.

GAO noted that: (1) the IHP is the Department of Justice's main vehicle
for placing aliens who are incarcerated in federal and state prisons
into deportation proceedings so that they can be expeditiously deported
upon release from prison; (2) in fiscal years 1995 and 1996, Congress
authorized dedicated IHP staff to help expand and enhance the program;
(3) the INS has not fully complied with the law's requirements
concerning criminal aliens who committed aggravated felonies, nor has it
realized the full potential of the IHP; (4) INS did not identify many
deportable criminal aliens before their release from prison; (5) for the
second half of fiscal year (FY) 1995, this resulted in nearly 2,000
criminal aliens, including some aggravated felons, being released into
U.S. communities without an INS determination of the risk they posed to
public safety; (6) GAO asked INS to determine whether there had been
post-release criminal activity by 635 of these criminal aliens; (7) INS
determined that 23 percent had been rearrested for crimes, including 184
felonies; (8) INS did not complete the IHP for the majority of criminal
aliens who were identified as potentially deportable and were released
from federal and five state prisons during the last 6 months of FY 1995;
(9) INS was able to more quickly remove from the country those aliens
for whom it completed the IHP with final deportation orders than those
aliens for whom it completed deportation hearings after their prison
release; (10) if INS had completed proceedings for all aliens released
from state and federal prisons in FY 1995 before their release, it could
have avoided nearly $63 million in detention costs; (11) INS' efforts to
improve the IHP have encountered several impediments; (12) the federal
Bureau of Prisons and some states have accepted INS' proposals to make
the processing of aliens more efficient, but others have not; (13)
further, INS did not staff the IHP at the expected levels because of
hiring delays, agent attrition, and the use of lower graded agents to
replace rather than supplement higher graded agents already working on
IHP cases; and (14) finally, INS' top managers did not adequately
respond to identified IHP performance problems.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-GGD-97-154
     TITLE:  Criminal Aliens: INS' Efforts to Identify and Remove 
             Imprisoned Aliens Need to be Improved
      DATE:  07/15/97
   SUBJECT:  Immigration or emigration
             Aliens
             Criminals
             Deportation
             Hearings
             Crimes or offenses
             Immigration information systems
             Federal/state relations
             Immigration and naturalization law
IDENTIFIER:  Arizona
             Florida
             California
             New York
             Texas
             INS Institutional Hearing Program
             INS Deportable Alien Control System
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Immigration and Claims Subcommittee
Committee on the Judiciary
House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery
Expected at 9:30 a.m.  EDT
July 15, 1997

CRIMINAL ALIENS
- INS' EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY AND
REMOVE IMPRISONED ALIENS NEED TO
BE IMPROVED

Statement of Norman J.  Rabkin
Director, Administration of Justice Issues
General Government Division

GAO/T-GGD-97-154

GAO/GGD-97-154t


(183602)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  ANSIR - Automated Nationwide System for Immigration Review
  BOP - Bureau of Prisons
  CIS - Central Index System
  CLAIMS - Computer-linked Application Information Management System
  DACS - Deportable Alien Control System
  EAC - Executive Associate Commissioner
  EOIR - Executive Office for Immigration Review
  GAO - General Accounting Office
  IHP - Institutional Hearing Program
  INS - Immigration and Naturalization Service
  LESC - Law Enforcement Support Center
  NAILSII - National Automated Immigration Lookout System II
  NIIS - Nonimmigrant Information System
  STSC - Student and Schools System

CRIMINAL ALIENS:  INS' EFFORTS TO
IDENTIFY AND REMOVE IMPRISONED
ALIENS NEED TO BE IMPROVED
====================================================== Chapter Summary

The Institutional Hearing Program (IHP) is the Department of
Justice's main vehicle for placing aliens who are incarcerated in
federal and state prisons into deportation proceedings so that they
can be expeditiously deported upon release from prison.  In fiscal
years 1995 and 1996, Congress authorized dedicated IHP staff to help
expand and enhance the program. 

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has not fully
complied with the law's requirements concerning criminal aliens who
committed aggravated felonies, nor has it realized the full potential
of the IHP.  INS did not identify many deportable criminal aliens
before their release from prison.  For the second half of fiscal year
1995, this resulted in nearly 2,000 criminal aliens, including some
aggravated felons, being released into U.S.  communities without an
INS determination of the risk they posed to public safety.  GAO asked
INS to determine whether there had been post-release criminal
activity by 635 of these criminal aliens.  INS determined that 23
percent had been rearrested for crimes, including 183 felonies. 

INS did not complete the IHP for the majority of criminal aliens who
were identified as potentially deportable and were released from
federal and five state prisons during the last 6 months of fiscal
year 1995.  INS was able to more quickly remove from the country
those aliens for whom it completed the IHP with final deportation
orders than those aliens for whom it completed deportation hearings
after their prison release.  If INS had completed proceedings for all
aliens released from state and federal prisons in fiscal year 1995
before their release, it could have avoided nearly $63 million in
detention costs. 

INS' efforts to improve the IHP have encountered several impediments. 
The federal Bureau of Prisons and some states have accepted INS'
proposals to make the processing of aliens more efficient, but others
have not.  Further, INS did not staff the IHP at the expected levels
because of hiring delays, agent attrition, and the use of lower
graded agents to replace rather than supplement higher graded agents
already working on IHP cases.  Finally, INS' top managers did not
adequately respond to identified IHP performance problems. 

GAO is making recommendations designed to help INS realize more of
the IHP's potential. 


CRIMINAL ALIENS:  INS' EFFORTS TO
IDENTIFY AND REMOVE IMPRISONED
ALIENS NEED TO BE IMPROVED
==================================================== Chapter Statement

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Institutional Hearing
Program (IHP), a cooperative program involving the Department of
Justice and the states.  The program's goal is to place incarcerated
criminal aliens in deportation hearings so they can be readily
deported upon their release from prison.\1 Removing deportable
aliens--particularly criminal aliens\2 --has been the subject of
congressional hearings and has been designated as a management
priority at INS. 

To assess the performance of the IHP, we reviewed INS activities and
analyzed data on over 17,000 foreign-born individuals released from
prisons in the last half of fiscal year 1995.  Our work was designed
to: 

  -- determine the extent to which deportable criminal aliens were
     included in the IHP,

  -- assess the extent to which INS completed deportation hearings
     for deportable aliens during their time in prison or after their
     release, and

  -- assess INS' efforts to enhance the IHP. 

We focused primarily on fiscal years 1995 and 1996 because during
these years Congress provided additional resources for IHP
operations, and INS initiated several measures intended to improve
the IHP's effectiveness in deporting criminal aliens.  We
concentrated primarily on the activities of INS--as opposed to the
Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which makes judicial
decisions regarding deportability--because INS has the lead role in
identifying incarcerated criminal aliens, determining their
deportability, initiating deportation proceedings, and removing
aliens from the United States.  In addition, we focused on IHP
activities in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and in five states
that account for over 80 percent of the total number of incarcerated
foreign-born inmates in the country.  These states are Arizona,
California, Florida, New York, and Texas. 

To assess the extent to which hearings were initiated and completed,
we reviewed INS' nationwide statistics on the IHP.  To identify which
released inmates were in or had completed deportation proceedings, we
asked EOIR to do a computer match of EOIR data with data from BOP and
seven states\3 on foreign-born aliens released in the last half of
fiscal year 1995.  To gather data on aliens taken into INS custody
and removed, we asked INS to match the data obtained from BOP and the
seven states against INS' Deportable Alien Control System.  In
addition, we asked INS to extract certain information from alien
files for a random sample of released foreign-born inmates.\4 To
assess INS' success in enhancing the IHP, we interviewed INS, BOP,
and EOIR officials in headquarters and field locations and state
corrections department staff.  We also reviewed INS plans,
performance reports, and other documentation on the IHP.  (See app. 
II for a more detailed description of our scope and methodology.) Our
work was conducted between January 1996 and July 1997 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Based on information developed from interviews, documentary review,
and analyses of data from large automated databases and from alien
case files, our assessment of the IHP's performance is that it falls
far short of its overall goals.  We found that (1) INS failed to
identify many deportable criminal aliens, including aggravated
felons, and initiate IHP proceedings for them before they were
released from prison; (2) INS did not complete the IHP by the time of
prison release for the majority of criminal aliens it did identify;
and (3) INS has not realized several intended enhancements to the
IHP. 


--------------------
\1 Under revised provisions for the removal of aliens established in
the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of
1996, P.L.  104-208, aliens charged by INS as deportable are now
placed in "removal" proceedings as opposed to "deportation"
proceedings.  For consistency, we refer to these proceedings as
deportation hearings or proceedings throughout this testimony. 

\2 For definitions of "alien" and "criminal alien," see appendix I. 

\3 In addition to the five states, we also obtained data on Illinois
and New Jersey.  As explained in appendix II, these states were
dropped because data from these states' corrections departments could
not be reliably matched with INS' data. 

\4 When foreign-born inmates are interviewed to determine their
deportability, INS agents are to document the interview in the
aliens' files, which are referred to as "A-files."


   BACKGROUND
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter Statement:1

Criminal aliens cost our criminal justice systems hundreds of
millions of dollars annually and are generally perceived to be a
serious and growing threat to public safety.  In response to these
problems, several major laws were passed between 1986 and 1996 that
provided for the initiation of deportation proceedings for certain
criminal aliens while incarcerated, expanded the types of crimes for
which aliens could be deported, and sought to facilitate the
expeditious removal of those aliens found to be deportable. 

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, P.L.  99-603,
requires that INS initiate deportation proceedings for criminal
aliens as expeditiously as possible after the date of conviction. 
INS and EOIR established the IHP to meet this requirement.  The
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, P.L.  100-690, defined the crimes of
murder and drug or weapons trafficking as "aggravated felonies" and
required INS to begin and, to the extent possible, complete
deportation proceedings for aggravated felons before their release
from prison.  It also required that INS take all such aggravated
felons into custody upon completion of their sentences.  In the early
1990s, the law was changed to allow INS to release aggravated felons
from custody if they were lawfully admitted aliens, were not a threat
to the community, and were likely to appear for their deportation
hearings.  However, beginning in October 1996, under provisions of
the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of
1996, P.L.  104-208 (1996 Act), INS is required to take into custody
a much larger class of criminal aliens beyond aggravated felons.\5


--------------------
\5 The 1996 Act made major changes to immigration law and procedures,
many of which went into effect on April 1, 1997.  Since our review
focused primarily on fiscal years 1995 and 1996, the changes in the
1996 Act are generally not reflected in this testimony. 


      THE IHP PROCESS
------------------------------------------------ Chapter Statement:1.1

INS agents generally rely on state and federal corrections personnel
to notify them of incoming prisoners who state they are foreign born
or whom corrections personnel identify as foreign born.  Corrections
personnel typically first learn that prisoners are foreign born
during prison intake procedures, which include interviews with and
record checks on arriving inmates.  The IHP process begins when INS
agents screen foreign-born prisoners to determine their
deportability.  The INS agents who screen foreign-born prisoners may
be permanently assigned to a state or federal prison or may travel to
the prison from their official duty stations.  If the INS agent
determines that an inmate has committed a crime for which he or she
can be deported, the agent is to file a "detainer" with corrections
officials.  A detainer in a prisoner's record signifies that he or
she is to be released to INS custody upon completion of the prison
sentence. 

The information that INS agents gather on a criminal alien is to be
used to prepare an Order to Show Cause, a document that charges the
alien with having committed a deportable offense.  INS attorneys are
to review the order for legal sufficiency and file it with EOIR. 
EOIR is to schedule an initial hearing and notify the alien.  Once
the alien is notified, the alien is included in the IHP.  The purpose
of the initial hearing is to explain the process to the alien,
resolve evidentiary issues, prepare a list of desired witnesses, and
address the issue of legal representation for the alien.\6 The alien
may immediately accept an order for deportation.  Alternatively, a
subsequent hearing may be held, during which witnesses may be called
and evidence may be entered supporting INS' charge of deportability
and/or the alien's claim for relief from deportation.  After all the
evidence is presented, an immigration judge renders a final decision. 
If the alien is ordered deported, a deportation order referred to as
a "final order of deportation" is to be served on the alien. 

The IHP ends when the alien is released from prison (1) with a final
decision that either orders the alien deported, grants the alien
relief from deportation, or closes the case in some other manner;\7
or (2) prior to a final decision on the case.  INS is required to
take certain deportable aliens into custody, whether or not the IHP
proceedings have been completed.\8 Those for whom the IHP proceedings
are completed by issuance of a final order of deportation are to be
held in detention until they are removed from the United States.  A
flow chart of the IHP process is in appendix III. 


--------------------
\6 The immigration judge is to inform the alien of his or her right
to be represented by counsel at no cost to the government.  The judge
is to advise the alien of the availability of free legal service
programs and ensure that the alien has been given a list of such
programs. 

\7 IHP proceedings may be discontinued by an immigration judge in
several ways other than the issuance of a final order of deportation
or the granting of relief from deportation, including (1)
administrative closure for such reasons as the alien did not appear
for a hearing, and the judge decided that the alien was not properly
notified; (2) a change of venue, whereby the immigration judge
transfers the case to another immigration judge's jurisdiction, as
can occur when an alien who starts IHP proceedings is released before
the case is completed; and (3) termination, when the immigration
judge decides that insufficient grounds exist to issue a final order
of deportation, and the alien is allowed to remain in the United
States. 

\8 During the time of our review, INS was required to take into
custody and detain criminal aliens convicted of aggravated felonies. 
Lawfully admitted aliens who did not pose a threat to the community
and who were deemed likely to appear for their hearings could be
released.  Criminal aliens not convicted of aggravated felonies could
be taken into custody and then could be released on bond or on their
own recognizance, pending completion of deportation proceedings. 


   INS FAILED TO IDENTIFY MANY
   DEPORTABLE CRIMINAL ALIENS,
   INCLUDING AGGRAVATED FELONS,
   WHO WERE RELEASED FROM PRISON
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter Statement:2

INS does not have information on all imprisoned criminal aliens.  As
a result, INS has no assurance that it complied with the legal
requirements that it (1) place criminal aliens who had committed
aggravated felonies in deportation proceedings while they are
incarcerated, or (2) take those aggravated felons into custody upon
their release from prison. 

Our analysis of data on 17,320 foreign-born inmates released from BOP
and 5 state prisons during the last half of fiscal year 1995 showed
that INS and EOIR databases had no indication that IHP procedures had
been initiated for nearly 6,000 individuals.  To determine why these
individuals were not in INS' database--for example, whether INS may
have screened them for the IHP and/or put them into deportation
proceedings without recording the information in its database--we
drew a random sample of these cases and asked INS district offices to
extract relevant information from individual alien files.  On the
basis of 329 responses obtained from INS districts in Arizona,
California, New York, and Texas, and from BOP, we found that INS
could not determine whether it had interviewed many of these
foreign-born inmates to determine their deportability.\9

We requested INS' Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) to conduct a
follow-up search to help determine whether any of the nearly 6,000\10
released inmates were potentially deportable criminal aliens.  LESC
identified 1,899 of these foreign-born inmates as deportable criminal
aliens because of their immigration status and the nature of the
crime they had committed.  Although aliens meeting these criteria are
to be screened by INS and put into deportation proceedings as
expeditiously as possible following their convictions, there was no
indication in INS' or EOIR's databases that these actions occurred
while the aliens were in prison or after they were released.\11

Under the law, INS is required to initiate deportation proceedings
against aggravated felons while they are in prison and take them into
custody upon their release.\12 Because the definition of "aggravated
felony" has been expanded several times since it was first created in
1988, determining whether a criminal alien would have been classified
as an aggravated felon at the time of his or her release depends on
the definition in effect at the time of conviction in some cases, and
the date of commission of the offense in other cases.  LESC
identified 635 of 1,899 released criminal aliens as having committed
crimes that were defined as aggravated felonies at the time that LESC
did its analysis--July 1996 through March 1997.  However, LESC told
us that it was not possible for it to determine whether all of these
635 aliens had committed crimes that were considered aggravated
felonies at the time they were convicted because doing so would be
too resource intensive.  Although LESC was unable to determine the
history of all of the 635 aliens

who were released, it identified some who had committed crimes that
met the aggravated felony definition either at the time of the
offense or at the time of their conviction. 

According to INS and EOIR databases, none of the nearly 6,000 aliens
had been in deportation proceedings while they were in prison or
afterward, had been taken into INS custody, or had been deported.  We
asked INS to follow up on the post-release criminal activities of the
635 aggravated felons.  In a July 11, 1997 letter, INS told us that: 

  -- 148 of the 635 have been rearrested since their release,

  -- 31 of the 635 have been rearrested more than once,

  -- the 148 aliens were charged with committing 184 felonies; and

  -- 114 of the 148 have been convicted. 


--------------------
\9 Our sample was originally designed so that we could statistically
estimate how many of the nearly 6,000 cases were interviewed, placed
in deportation proceedings, or did not have any indication of having
been interviewed by INS.  However, an error in the computer matching
done by INS resulted in INS having to redo the match and send us new
data.  Because our sample was drawn before the error was detected, we
are not able to make statistical projections from the case file
review. 

\10 There were 5,884 foreign-born inmates whom BOP and the 5 states
told us were released from prison but were not contained in INS and
EOIR databases.  LESC checked the records of 5,109 of these released
inmates. 

\11 The Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General reported
in September 1995 that some states had substantial numbers of
foreign-born inmates who had not been interviewed and processed
through the IHP.  The report concluded that if INS did not eliminate
the existing backlogs, foreign-born inmates would be released into
the community without INS having identified them as deportable. 

\12 As discussed earlier, under the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, beginning October 1996, INS is
required to take into custody a larger group of criminal aliens than
aggravated felons. 


   INS DID NOT COMPLETE THE IHP
   FOR A MAJORITY OF RELEASED
   CRIMINAL ALIENS, RESULTING IN
   AVOIDABLE DETENTION COSTS
   AMOUNTING TO MILLIONS OF
   DOLLARS
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter Statement:3

INS' overall goal for the IHP is to have all deportable criminal
aliens released from federal and state prisons with final deportation
orders.  However, according to IHP and other INS managers, they
recognized that, for various reasons, INS would not have sufficient
staff to enable INS to complete deportation proceedings for all
criminal aliens in all states while they were in prison.  Therefore,
for fiscal years 1995 and 1996, INS set nationwide operational goals
that were lower than INS' desired goal for the IHP.  Specifically,
for fiscal years 1995 and 1996, respectively, INS' operational goals
were that about 30 and 40 percent of the criminal aliens whom it took
into custody would have completed deportation proceedings with final
deportation orders prior to their release from prison and would be
removed.\13 The goals were based on IHP managers' estimates of the
number of aliens who could be processed through the IHP and removed. 
It was necessary to produce estimates using this method because INS
did not have a formal workload model that would systematically take
into account such factors as the projected number of foreign-born
inmates, number of prisons that must be visited, number and types of
IHP staff expected to be available, length of time required to
process cases, and travel time and costs.  Further, although district
directors make resource allocation decisions for their districts,and
are directly responsible for implementing the IHP, top management
officials did not allocate the national operational goals among the
district directors with IHP responsibilities. 

In each of fiscal years 1995 and 1996, INS completed the IHP for,
obtained a final deportation order for, and deported about 32 percent
of the released criminal aliens that it took into custody from
federal and state prisons.  Relative to its operational goals, INS
exceeded the fiscal year 1995 goal of 30 percent and fell short of
the fiscal year 1996 goal of 40 percent.  However, relative to its
overall goal of 100 percent, INS did not complete the IHP for and
remove approximately two-thirds of the criminal aliens it took into
custody upon their release from state and federal prisons in either
of these 2 years. 

INS' data on the IHP are limited because, as discussed earlier, INS
has not identified all individuals who are foreign-born inmates in
the BOP and state prison systems and does not maintain a centralized
database of these individuals, which would enable it to routinely
track the IHP status of all potentially deportable inmates. 
Therefore, it could not readily determine where individuals were in
the IHP process, nor could it readily provide summary information on
the number of criminal aliens who had committed aggravated felonies. 
Consequently, we performed an analysis of data on foreign-born
inmates who, according to BOP and the corrections departments of the
five states we reviewed, were released from their prison systems
during the last 6 months of fiscal year 1995 and, according to INS
and EOIR data, were potentially deportable.  There were 11,436
released inmates in this population.  We found that 40 percent of
these aliens left prison with a final deportation order (having
completed the IHP), 3 percent left prison without a deportation order
but with INS having completed the deportation hearing process, and
INS completed the process for 49 percent after they were released
from prison.  For the remaining 8 percent of cases, there was no
indication that hearings were completed either before or after prison
release.  Appendix IV shows the variation among the states and BOP in
the number of foreign-born inmates who completed the hearing process. 

Our analysis showed that INS was able to quickly remove those
deportable aliens who had completed the IHP with final deportation
orders before they were released from prison--75 percent were removed
from the United States within 1 week of their prison release.  Of the
aliens for whom INS started deportation hearings before prison
release and completed them after release, 75 percent were removed in
about 5 weeks after their release.  However, among the aliens for
whom INS started and completed the hearing process after their
release from prison, it took about 1 year before 75 percent were
removed.\14

Not completing deportation proceedings during incarceration means
that INS has to use its limited detention space to house most
released criminal aliens rather than using the space to detain other
aliens.  INS acknowledges that it incurs detention costs for housing
these aliens when these costs could be avoided.  On the basis of INS'
nationwide data for fiscal year 1995, we estimated that INS could
have avoided nearly $63 million in detention costs for aliens who
were released before INS completed the IHP process.\15


--------------------
\13 INS' operational goals for fiscal years 1995 and 1996,
respectively, were to complete hearings for, take into custody, and
remove 8,250 and 13,400 criminal aliens nationwide. 

\14 For those aliens who were deported, appendix V contains a fuller
analysis of the time that elapsed between their release from prison
and their deportation. 

\15 See appendix VI for a discussion of how we estimated these costs. 


   INS HAS NOT ENHANCED THE IHP TO
   THE EXTENT INTENDED
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter Statement:4

Since 1994, INS has focused its efforts on improving IHP operations
in BOP and in seven states--Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois,
New Jersey, New York, and Texas--which INS estimates account for 86
percent of the criminal aliens incarcerated in state and federal
prisons.  INS developed formal enhancement plans for BOP and the
seven states.  These plans were generally designed to improve
efficiency by reducing the number of intake, hearing, and release
sites and by increasing IHP staffing.  INS also made the removal of
criminal aliens an INS management priority. 

We reviewed the status of INS' enhancement efforts in BOP and four
states--California, Texas, Florida, and New York.  Our work has shown
that several factors have slowed INS' efforts to improve the
operations of the IHP.  First, through the enhancement plans, INS
generally sought to reduce the number of state prison facilities that
served as intake, hearing, and release sites for foreign-born
inmates.  However, INS needed the states' approval to implement such
a reduction, and approval was not always forthcoming.  On the one
hand, several states reduced the number of sites they had been
operating:  for example, Texas went from about 25 release sites to a
single facility.  On the other hand, some states did not consolidate
their IHP sites to the extent INS had wanted.  For example, Florida
would not agree to reduce the number of release sites to less than
15, citing security concerns as a reason for not further reducing the
number of sites. 

Second, INS did not achieve its expected staffing levels for the IHP
in fiscal years 1995 and 1996 for several reasons: 

  -- Because of budget and funding delays, INS could not hire new
     agents for the IHP until about 6 months into each of fiscal
     years 1995 and 1996.  In fiscal year 1995, INS did not authorize
     hiring for newly established IHP positions until February 1995. 
     In fiscal year 1996, according to INS budget staff, Congress did
     not approve INS' budget until almost 7 months into the year. 
     Because it takes about 2 months to recruit and screen applicants
     for these positions and about 4 months to train them, many of
     the newly hired agents who required training were unavailable to
     work on the IHP in the fiscal year in which their positions were
     funded. 

  -- INS did not clearly communicate to its field offices whether
     newly hired immigration agents were to replace or supplement the
     special agents already assigned to the IHP.  Top INS managers
     who were tasked with overseeing the IHP told us that they
     expected that newly hired agents would supplement special agents
     already assigned to the IHP.  However, the officials were not
     able to provide us with documentation that they formally
     communicated this to the INS districts where immigration agents
     were assigned.  Because INS district directors have authority to
     adjust programmatic staffing levels, some districts used the new
     immigration agents as supplements, and other district directors
     used them as replacements for special agents assigned to the
     IHP.  For example, the Dallas district director increased IHP
     staffing because he assigned three new immigration agents to
     supplement the two special agents already processing IHP cases
     at a BOP facility.  In contrast, the New Orleans district
     director reassigned two special agents who were working on IHP
     cases and replaced them with five newly hired immigration
     agents.  As a result, although the number of agents assigned to
     the IHP in the New Orleans district increased, it was two fewer
     than the number of agents that the lead official expected would
     be assigned to the IHP. 

  -- Immigration agent attrition was also a problem.  For example, in
     fiscal year 1996 the average attrition rate for all INS staff
     was about 11 percent.  In comparison, the attrition rate for
     immigration agents was about 30 percent.\16 According to INS,
     one reason for this relatively high attrition rate was that
     immigration agents who were hired to staff the IHP left for
     potentially better paying positions within INS, such as that of
     special agent.  Immigration agents are limited in their benefits
     and advancement opportunities, but they often possess many of
     the qualifications required for INS positions with greater pay
     and advancement potential; thus, they were competitive for
     filling vacancies in those potentially better paying positions. 

Third, although INS has designated the removal of criminal aliens,
through the IHP and other programs, as a key management priority, top
management officials did not adequately respond to identified
problems with the IHP.  INS' fiscal year 1996 mid-year and third
quarter progress reports, prepared by the IHP staff for top
management, stated that INS would fall short of its IHP goal at the
current productivity rate.  INS criteria indicate that when resources
are not adequate to accomplish program objectives, lead officials for
the priority areas must either identify necessary changes in the work
processes to increase productivity in order to meet the goal, or they
must propose modifying the priority objective to match realistic
expectations of available resources.  However, top management
officials did not revise the goals or, alternatively, develop a plan
of action to ensure that INS would meet its goal.  As discussed
earlier, in fiscal year 1996, INS fell short of its IHP operational
goal. 


--------------------
\16 These attrition rates represent only the internal organizational
movement of INS staff from one INS position to another and do not
include losses to other employers. 


   CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter Statement:5

If fully implemented, the IHP would be an effective way to achieve
the requirements of the law regarding the timely deportation of
eligible criminal aliens.  However, the IHP is a resource-intensive
program that relies in large part on the cooperation of BOP and the
state departments of corrections.  To date, some of the states INS
has approached about IHP enhancements have not cooperated to the
extent that INS has sought.  Further, INS has not implemented the IHP
in a way that would ensure optimum performance, nor has it
systematically determined what resources would be needed to achieve
that level of performance. 

We believe that INS can take steps that will improve the operations
of and outcomes from the IHP.  First, INS needs better information
about prison inmates--more specifically, which inmates are eligible
for the IHP and which of these inmates have been and have not been
included in the program.  Our work has shown that INS' databases do
not contain complete and current information on the IHP status of
individual foreign-born inmates at any given point in time.  We could
not use INS' data to determine which of the released foreign-born
inmates had been screened for the IHP, identified as deportable, or
placed in the hearing process. 

Therefore, we recommend that the Commissioner establish a nationwide
data system containing the universe of foreign-born inmates reported
to INS by BOP and the state departments of corrections and use this
system to track the IHP status of each inmate. 

Second, the law requires INS to take certain actions with regard to
criminal aliens who have been convicted of aggravated felonies beyond
those required for other criminal aliens.  As mentioned above, INS is
required by law to initiate and, to the extent possible, complete
deportation proceedings against aggravated felons while they are in
prison and to take them into custody upon their release.  Yet our
work shows that INS did not fully comply with the required provisions
of the law in effect prior to 1996. 

Therefore, we recommend that the Commissioner give priority to aliens
serving time for aggravated felonies by establishing controls to
ensure that these aliens are identified from among the universe of
foreign-born inmates provided by BOP and the states, are placed into
deportation proceedings while in prison, and are taken into custody
upon their release. 

Third, INS has established IHP performance goals without having a
systematic basis for determining what performance results it could
accomplish with various resource levels.  We found that INS has not
developed a uniform method for projecting the resources it would
need--taking into consideration the level of cooperation from BOP and
the states--to achieve its overall goal of completing deportation
proceedings for every eligible foreign-born inmate before release or
for alternative operational goals. 

Therefore, we recommend that the Commissioner (1) develop a workload
analysis model to identify the IHP resources needed in any period to
achieve overall program goals and the portion of those goals that
would be achievable with alternative levels of resources, and (2) use
the model to support its IHP funding and staffing requests.  Such a
model should consider several factors, including the number of
foreign-born inmates, number of prisons that must be visited, number
and types of IHP staff, length of time to process cases, and travel
time and costs. 

Fourth, the relatively high attrition rate among immigration agents
in fiscal year 1995 contributed to the IHP not being fully staffed
and adversely affected INS' attainment of the IHP goals.  Although
INS officials point out that the immigration agent position has been
a stepping-stone to higher level positions within INS, we do not know
the specific root causes for the attrition rate. 

Therefore, we recommend that the Commissioner identify the causes of
immigration agent attrition and take steps to ensure that staffing is
adequate to achieve IHP program goals. 

Finally, our work has shown that INS top management did not provide
attention commensurate with the priority it assigned to the program. 
Top management did not formally communicate to the district directors
how additional staff should be used in the IHP, did not ensure that
specific operational goals were established for each INS district
director with IHP responsibilities, and did not respond with specific
corrective actions when it became apparent that the program would not
achieve its goals for fiscal year 1996. 

Therefore, we recommend that INS establish and effectively
communicate a clear policy on the role of special agents in the IHP
and, using a workload analysis model, set IHP goals for district
directors with IHP responsibilities.  In addition, if it appears that
IHP goals will not be met, INS should document any actions taken to
correct the problem. 


   AGENCY COMMENTS
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter Statement:6

On June 12, 1997 and July 11, 1997, we briefed the Executive
Associate Commissioner (EAC) for Programs and other officials from
INS' Office of Programs, General Counsel, Field Operations, Internal
Audit, and Congressional Relations, and they generally concurred with
our findings, conclusions, and recommendations.  With regard to our
recommendation on identifying causes of immigration agent attrition,
the EAC for Programs noted that INS believes that immigration agent
attrition is no longer as high as it used to be.  He added, however,
that INS plans to undertake a broad examination of the immigration
agent position, including benefits, flexibility, and vacancies. 


------------------------------------------------ Chapter Statement:6.1

Mr.  Chairman, this completes my statement.  I would be happy to
answer your questions at this time. 


DEFINITION OF "ALIEN" AND
"CRIMINAL ALIEN"
=========================================================== Appendix I


   ALIEN
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1

An alien is any individual who is not a citizen of the United States,
regardless of whether the individual's immigration status is legal or
illegal.  Legal aliens include (1) immigrants who entered the country
with valid visas and were later granted resident status by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); and (2) nonimmigrants,
such as students, tourists, temporary workers, and business visitors
who do not violate the conditions of their visas.  Illegal aliens
include those who (1) enter the country without visas or passports;
(2) do not present themselves for inspection by INS; (3) enter the
country using fraudulent documents; and (4) are nonimmigrants who
have violated a condition of their visas, such as remaining in the
country beyond the period of time authorized. 


   CRIMINAL ALIEN
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2

Criminal aliens are noncitizens who have been convicted of a crime
committed in this country for which they could be removed from the
United States.  At the time of our review, most aliens were placed in
deportation proceedings to effect their removal.  Some aliens were
placed in exclusion proceedings because, from a legal standpoint,
they were not deemed to have actually entered the country.  As an
example of such a situation, aliens may arrive at U.S.  airports,
declare their intent to seek political asylum, and be temporarily
allowed into the United States pending a determination of their
cases.  Because such aliens were not considered to have formally
entered the United States, they would be placed in exclusion rather
than deportation proceedings if convicted of a deportable offense
before their asylum cases were resolved.  We use "deportation
proceedings" or "deportation hearings" in this testimony to refer to
both deportation and exclusion proceedings.  Under the Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996,
deportation and exclusion proceedings are now referred to as removal
proceedings. 


SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
========================================================== Appendix II

We reviewed IHP plans and activities for BOP and the corrections
systems of seven states--Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New
Jersey, New York, and Texas.  We selected these states because, in
March 1996, their corrections systems accounted for 86 percent of the
total number of foreign-born inmates reported as incarcerated in
state institutions.  In addition, INS has targeted its additional
resources for IHP initiatives to these seven states and BOP. 

We focused primarily on fiscal years 1995 and 1996, because during
these years Congress provided additional resources for IHP
operations, and INS initiated several measures to improve the IHP's
effectiveness in deporting criminal aliens.  We concentrated on
INS--as opposed to EOIR, which makes adjudicative decisions regarding
deportability--because INS has the lead role in identifying
incarcerated criminal aliens, determining their deportability, and
initiating deportation proceedings. 

To assess the IHP's performance, we analyzed INS documents and
statistics on IHP performance goals, measures, and results to
determine (1) how the IHP's performance in deporting incarcerated
criminal aliens changed during fiscal years 1995 and 1996 and (2) the
extent to which INS was meeting its IHP goals. 

In addition, we sought to determine whether INS was screening the
entire universe of foreign-born inmates identified by corrections
personnel and the extent to which IHP-eligible inmates were placed
into deportation proceedings, completed the IHP process, and were
removed from the United States upon release from prison.  To answer
these questions, we obtained data from BOP and correctional
institutions in seven states on all of the foreign-born inmates they
released from April through September 1995.  The data from the April
to September 1995 period are considered to be representative of the
entire year.  We did not determine the completeness of the lists of
foreign-born inmates provided either to us or to INS.  We asked INS
to match these records against information in its Deportable Alien
Control System (DACS) to identify those released foreign-born inmates
who were taken into INS custody upon their release from prison,
detained, or removed from the United States.  Although we did not
independently assess the reliability of DACS data in this review, we
addressed questions to INS about what, if any, quality controls and
procedures are used to ensure the reliability of those data elements
that we used in this review.  The data elements included whether the
alien was (1) taken into custody, (2) issued a final deportation
order, and (3) removed.  INS personnel who operate and manage the
DACS database responded that both the accuracy and completeness of
these data elements in DACS are good.  They stated that supervisors
perform random checks on DACS data every time an officer submits a
case for review.  Further, they reported that all of these data
elements are entered into DACS , although,

depending on the complexity of the case, there may be some lag time
between the occurrence of events and input of data into DACS.  We
also asked EOIR to match the records against information in its
Automated Nationwide System for Immigration Review (ANSIR) to
identify those released foreign-born inmates who had been in
deportation proceedings.  Again, although we did not independently
assess the database's reliability, we addressed questions to EOIR
about what, if any, quality controls and procedures are used to
ensure the reliability of those data elements that we used in this
review.  The data elements included (1) whether the alien was placed
in deportation proceedings and (2) the outcome of the proceedings. 
EOIR personnel who operate and manage the ANSIR database responded
that the accuracy and completeness of the data fields are superior,
with error rates being less than 1 percent.  They stated that reports
to verify data accuracy are run daily, weekly, and monthly, and EOIR
staff are held to high performance standards with respect to data
integrity. 

From these data matches, we determined for BOP and five states\17 how
many of the foreign-born inmates were included in and completed the
IHP prior to prison release, how many completed deportation
proceedings after release, and how many had started but had not
completed proceedings at the time we completed our review.  For those
who were issued a final order of deportation, we were able to
determine how many had been removed from the United States by January
1997.  We selected the April through September 1995 time frame
because we wanted to follow up on how many criminal aliens had
completed deportation proceedings and been removed from the United
States.  We did our followup approximately 16 to 22 months after the
aliens' release from prison. 

About 6,000 of the approximately 17,300 foreign-born released inmates
were not in either INS' or EOIR's database.  We sought to determine
the extent to which this sizable unmatched group consisted of (1)
cases that were screened for inclusion in the IHP and perhaps even
processed through the IHP but not entered into the appropriate
databases; (2) foreign-born U.S.  citizens who are not eligible for
the IHP; or (3) criminal aliens who should have been, but were not,
included in the IHP and were released from prison without being taken
into INS custody. 

We took two steps to determine the composition of the group of nearly
6,000 unmatched cases.  First, we selected a random sample of several
hundred of these cases from BOP and seven states and asked INS
district staff to review the original case files for each of these
individuals.  Our purpose was to determine whether there was
information in the files that had not been entered in DACS.  Second,
we asked LESC--an INS unit that conducts database searches for local
law enforcement agencies to determine whether arrested individuals
are criminal aliens--to match the nearly 6,000 records with
information contained in 6 INS databases,\18 the FBI's National Crime
Information Center, and state criminal history databases.  The
results enabled us to determine (1) how many individuals were U.S. 
citizens and, therefore, ineligible for the IHP; (2) how many were
deportable criminal aliens who were released from prisons; and (3)
whether any identified criminal aliens had been convicted of
committing an aggravated felony. 

To determine what actions INS took to improve the operations and
effectiveness of the IHP, we reviewed formal plans approved by the
INS Commissioner to streamline IHP operations in each of the seven
key states as well as in BOP.  We examined documents pertaining to
the roles of IHP staff and the allocation of staff resources to the
IHP.  Additionally, we reviewed INS planning documents pertaining to
the removal of criminal aliens and the IHP's annual goals. 

In addition, we interviewed key officials at INS and BOP headquarters
and in corrections departments and INS field locations in California,
Florida, New York, and Texas.  We selected these four states for site
visits because they represented four of the five states where IHP
enhancement efforts began, and because they had the largest number of
foreign-born inmates among all state correctional facilities. 
Resource constraints precluded our visiting all seven states.  We
interviewed INS and BOP officials at BOP's Oakdale, LA, and La Tuna,
NM, federal correctional institutions and INS' El Paso, TX, district
office.  We chose the Oakdale facility because it was the first IHP
site in a federal prison and because it was one of two sites staffed
full-time by INS personnel and immigration judges.  We chose the La
Tuna facility because, in contrast to Oakdale, the facility has
neither full-time INS staff nor immigration judges at the facility. 

To determine what factors have influenced the IHP's performance and
INS' implementation of IHP enhancement initiatives, we interviewed
officials with INS, EOIR, and BOP; and officials in corrections
departments in California, Florida, New York, and Texas.  We
discussed the overall status of IHP enhancement plans, including
implementation barriers, with INS' General Counsel and district
counsel officials and the national coordinators for the BOP and state
IHPs.  We also reviewed periodic reports and other documentation on
the IHP's performance that INS and BOP officials provided to us. 

Table II.1 shows the INS district that we visited to review BOP and
state IHP activities and the districts' regional office jurisdiction. 



                               Table II.1
                
                  INS District Offices and Regions GAO
                  Visited Reviewing BOP and State IHP
                               Activities

                                               IHP focus
                                  ------------------------------------
                                       La
                                    Tuna,  Oakdale
                        INS            NM     , LA
INS district office     region      (BOP)    (BOP)   CA   FL   NY   TX
----------------------  --------  -------  -------  ---  ---  ---  ---
El Paso                 Central         X
Houston                 Central                                      X
Los Angeles             Western                       X
Miami                   Eastern                            X
New Orleans             Central                  X
New York                Eastern                                 X
San Diego               Western                       X
San Francisco           Western                       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend:  X - Visited by GAO. 

Source:  GAO. 

In each of the INS districts listed in the table, we interviewed key
officials involved in IHP processing to document IHP roles and
procedures, changes brought about by IHP enhancement initiatives,
obstacles to progress toward a more efficient IHP, and the program's
overall status.  Our INS contacts included district directors,
assistant district directors for investigations, assistant district
directors for detention and deportation, IHP directors and
coordinators, and district counsel staff.  At EOIR, we interviewed
immigration judges who conduct IHP hearings and court administrators
who schedule deportation proceedings.  We also interviewed BOP and
state corrections system authorities to get their perspectives on the
IHP and efforts to improve the program's performance. 


--------------------
\17 We dropped two additional states from our analysis, Illinois and
New Jersey, because data obtained from these states' corrections
departments could not be reliably matched with INS' data.  Without a
unique identifier, such as an A-number, that is common to both
databases, we would have had to rely on such information as names and
birthdates, which are not a conclusive way of identifying
individuals. 

\18 The six databases searched by LESC were (1) the Central Index
System (CIS), (2) the Computer-linked Application Information
Management System (CLAIMS), (3) the Deportable Alien Control System
(DACS), (4) the National Automated Immigration Lookout System II
(NAILS II), (5) the Nonimmigrant Information System (NIIS), and (6)
the Student and Schools System (STSC). 


THE IHP PROCESS
========================================================= Appendix III



   (See figure in printed
   edition.)



   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  INS. 


DISPOSITION OF POTENTIALLY
DEPORTABLE INMATES RELEASED FROM
BOP AND 5 STATES' PRISONS OVER A
6-MONTH PERIOD IN FISCAL YEAR 1995
========================================================== Appendix IV

                                                                                                                                     No evidence that
                                                                                                                                      hearings were
                                                                                                                                     completed before
                                                             Hearings completed before prison     Hearings completed after prison    or after prison
                                                                          release                             release                    release
                                                            -----------------------------------  ----------------------------------  ----------------
                                                                                 Potentially
                                                                               deportable cases                    Deportable cases
                                                               Potentially      completing the                        completing
                              Potentially deportable cases  deportable cases    IHP with final   Deportable cases  hearing process
                               (as indicated by INS/EOIR     completing the        order of         completing     with final order
          Location                    data match)                  IHP           deportation     hearing process    of deportation
----------------------------  ----------------------------  -----------------  ----------------  ----------------  ----------------
                                                    Number    Number  Percent   Number  Percent   Number  Percent   Number  Percent   Number  Percent
----------------------------  ----------------------------  --------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------
Arizona                                                448       230       51      213       48      191       43      144       32       27        6
California                                           5,113     2,443       48    2,350       46    2,460       48    2,006       39      210        4
Florida                                                368       264       72      224       61       94       26       63       17       10        3
New York                                               960       536       56      472       49      409       43      232       24       15        2
Texas                                                  530       111       21       99       19      326       62      294       55       93       18
BOP                                                  4,017     1,334       33    1,224       30    2,162       54    1,801       45      521       13
=====================================================================================================================================================
Total                                               11,436     4,918       43    4,582      40\    5,642       49    4,540       40      876        8
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$62,
 cost                                          815,446
----------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Avoidable days = average number of days in detention beyond those
spent by criminal aliens who had a final order when released. 

\b Avoidable detention cost = number of aliens X average net days in
detention X average daily detention cost. 

Our sample of 11,436 potentially deportable criminal aliens released
from BOP and five states' prisons during the second half of fiscal
year 1995 included 6,518 inmates who were released to INS without INS
having completed their hearing process while they were in prison. 
Nationwide, INS reported that in all of 1995, a total of 20,118 such
inmates were released into its custody.  Of the 6,518 released
inmates that GAO studied, 4,223 inmates had received deportation
orders and were deported by January of 1997.  We were able to
determine for 4,223 of these released inmates both the average number
of days detained by INS and whether the hearing process started
before or after prison release.  Of the 4,223 inmates, 87 percent
started deportation proceedings in prison, and they were held for an
average of 41 days.  The remaining 13 percent started deportation
proceedings after prison release and were held for an average of 206
days.  For the remaining 2,295 inmates in our study, we assumed that
the timing of deportation proceedings and the average number of days
in INS detention were similar.  The 2,295 inmates included (1) 876
inmates for whom there was no evidence that the hearing process was
completed; (2) 1,102 inmates for whom the hearing process was
completed after release from prison and no deportation order was
issued; and (3) 317 inmates for whom the hearing process was
completed after release from prison and a deportation order was
issued.  This provides the estimate that for 87 percent, or 17,498,
of the 20,118 released inmates, INS would have begun their hearing
process before release, and for the remaining 2,620 released inmates,
INS would have begun their hearing process after release. 

To determine the avoidable detention cost, we subtracted 15 days from
each of the observed detention times because this was the average
detention time for criminal aliens who completed the IHP with final
deportation orders.  According to INS, the average daily cost to
detain a single alien was $65.75 in fiscal year 1995. 

At least some of the savings in detention costs that INS could
realize by processing more criminal aliens through the IHP would be
offset by any additional funding that might be required to provide
additional resources for the IHP. 


INS FAILED TO IDENTIFY MANY
DEPORTABLE CRIMINAL ALIENS,
INCLUDING AGGRAVATED FELONS
========================================================= Appendix VII



   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  INS. 


IHP WAS NOT COMPLETED FOR MOST
RELEASED CRIMINAL ALIENS
======================================================== Appendix VIII



   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  INS. 


*** End of document. ***