Overwhelmed, demoralized INS develops culture of abuse, racism
Rapid growth, poor training, low pay and little discipline create a rude, unresponsive agency
Step into the detention and deportation section of Portland's U.S. immigration office and enter a world of racism, sexism and questionable conduct.
Some supervisors and offi0cers call foreigners "wets" -- for "wetbacks" -- and "tonks," U.S. Border Patrol slang for the sound of a flashlight hitting an illegal immigrant's head. Employees complain that an officer, later promoted to supervisor, tells an African American colleague and others he can't stand "niggers and white trash."
Officers jokingly toss packets of condoms into mailboxes of colleagues preparing to escort deportees abroad, until their supervisor warns them that hiring prostitutes during work trips is unprofessional.
A deportation supervisor derails an elaborate raid on an illegal immigrant camp by contacting foreign diplomats -- and then gets transferred and promoted, until he heads long-term detention for the entire INS. Far worse things have happened, he points out: His predecessor in Portland was convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old migrant girl.
While the Portland unit seethes with hatred and recrimination, it may not typify U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service offices across the country. Many dedicated people work for the nation's largest law-enforcement agency, which includes 21,000 gun-carrying officers.
But the INS is hamstrung by a decades-old culture of abuse and ineptitude evident in interviews of employees around the country and a review of thousands of pages of court records, internal documents and investigative reports. Isolation and frustration encourage values and behavior considered unacceptable in the larger society.
Across the nation, judges, members of Congress, academics and former top officials of the INS and its parent agency, the Justice Department, say that:
Rapid growth in the numbers of Border Patrol agents and other officers threatens performance standards and dilutes supervision.
INS training produces hard-nosed attitudes that emphasize enforcement at the expense of service.
Low pay and grueling work conditions hurt morale and invite abuse of both foreigners and co-workers.
District directors run their 36 jurisdictions as feudal domains, leading to uneven application of the law.
Supervisors trying to discipline employees are often thwarted by federal protections for workers.
Acting INS Commissioner Mary Ann Wyrsch disputes the assessment and The Oregonian's findings, saying she hasn't seen a culture of sexism, racism or misconduct.
While acknowledging that supervisory ranks are thin and that pay could be increased, Wyrsch says low pay and existing work conditions do not hurt morale.
She defends the breadth of training, and describes the agency's workforce as "terrific" -- even capable of heroism during international crises.
"There is a vastly underappreciated workforce here that we need to sing and celebrate," Wyrsch says. "We field a very well-trained and competent staff."
Yet in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, junior members and senior, castigate the agency for abuses, misconduct, rudeness and unresponsiveness.
Rep. Harold K. Rogers, R-Ky., for 18 years a member of the House Appropriations Committee -- which oversees the Justice Department -- says the INS resists discipline and management.
"The entire agency is so encrusted all the way down to the ground, it just does not respond to directions from the top," Rogers says.
"Personnel rules prevent effective discipline. The morale is poor. The culture leads to disregard for directives."
Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill., says the agency generates 80 percent of her calls from constituents. "The enforcement side of the INS dominates the culture of the agency so that all too often everybody is viewed as a potential criminal," Schakowsky says, "and all they're asking for is to get their passport stamped."
Harvard Law School professor Philip Heymann -- who observed the INS in 1993 and 1994 as deputy U.S. attorney general, agrees. "The INS is definitely worse than its counterparts and has been the problem area of the Justice Department for at least 20 years," Heymann says.
Michael Bromwich, the inspector general who was responsible for investigating the INS and other Justice Department agencies from 1994 to 1999, says the INS consistently accounts for far more misconduct and corruption than the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Prisons and the Marshals Service.
"The INS is notorious for having the most serious and pervasive management and misconduct problems of any part of the Justice Department," Bromwich says. "This has been the case for many, many years. Part of the problem is the culture of the agency which has resisted the management controls necessary to impose accountability."
"System engenders problems"
The INS and the inspector general's office launched a record 4,551 internal investigations last year -- one per seven workers -- in an agency that employs 32,000. Allegations, most by employees, ranged from harassment of coworkers to drug smuggling and bribery to civil-rights violations.
By contrast, internal investigators opened one inquiry per 25 DEA employees in fiscal 2000, one per 19 Customs Service employees in fiscal 1999 and about one per 50 FBI employees that year. INS workers received discipline at a rate three times that for FBI employees and nearly four times that for Customs employees.
Bromwich and others say the lopsided comparisons result from a deeply troubled agency, not from the INS policing itself more thoroughly. One indication: Arrests of INS workers are more than twice as common as arrests of employees of the Bureau of Prisons, an agency of comparable size.
John Chase, who heads the INS Office of Internal Audit and oversees the agency's internal investigations, rejects the comparisons.
Chase acknowledges that the number of investigations has more than doubled since 1996. He says that isn't high, considering the INS had 550 million encounters with people last year, most at border crossings.
"We'd like to see that go down, but if you look at it in context, it's not bad," Chase says. "That's 550 million opportunities to abuse your authority."
Chase says misconduct results from a few bad apples. Yet immigration lawyers, human rights groups and professors contend the misconduct is ingrained.
"There doesn't seem to be a system in place that adequately punishes people who abuse their power," says Charles Kuck, an Atlanta attorney and American Immigration Lawyers Association board member. "You get a letter put in your file; you don't get fired."
For example, one officer who accused a fellow inspector of targeting him for his religious beliefs waited three years for an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decision, only to hear that his co-worker would go unpunished because he had offended without discriminating.
"The record strongly suggests that the offending individual treated co-workers equally bad," the adjudicator concluded, "regardless of their religious backgrounds. The offending individual was perceived as undiplomatic, critical, intimidating, verbally abusive, hostile, confrontational, explosive, threatening, a bully, rude, nasty, an agitator or an instigator, a troublemaker, arrogant, overbearing and abrasive -- by Methodists, Protestants, Mormons, Catholics, Lutherans and others."
Guardians and bouncers
INS officers who like their jobs are often quick to voice frustrations. "We're working at remote border stations at night, intercepting wanted felons," says Sean Casey, an inspector who works solo at a tiny port of entry in Beebe Plain, Vt. Casey once caught a truck driver smuggling 28 illegal immigrants. "Any one of those people might not have anything to lose."
"I try to treat people professionally," says Tom Faucher, an inspector in nearby Canaan, Vt., "so even when I send them back they'll say, 'Thank you.' "
Faucher, Casey and other inspectors covet the special law-enforcement status enjoyed by many other federal officers, who earn better benefits as a result.
Thomas J. "T.J." Bondurant, the Justice Department's assistant inspector general for investigations, says stress and frustration figure into many crimes by INS employees, especially along the teeming Southwest border. "I think it is a stressful job for the Border Patrol," he says. "It's the kind of job where, at the end of the shift each day, if you asked yourself 'What did I accomplish?' it's very difficult to say exactly what was achieved."
Josiah Heyman, a Michigan Technological University anthropologist who studied the culture of Border Patrol agents on the Mexican border, agrees: "You stick a person who has a can-do attitude in an endlessly repetitive and frustrating situation, then some people succumb to a variety of things," Heyman says. "They blame immigrants or they succumb to cynicism and become angry, and it helps encourage corruption sometimes and burnout."
Examples pop up around the country. In Texas, an inspector demands sexual favors from a Mexican woman who presents fraudulent documents. In New York, an inspector helps a deported felon re-enter the country. In Arizona, a Border Patrol agent punches an illegal immigrant in the face, breaking his nose, after officers apprehend the Mexican for running across the border.
The abuses flow from a variety of causes, critics say:
Rapid growth has compounded the agency's problems.
The number of Border Patrol agents, inspectors and detention enforcement officers has roughly doubled since 1994 as Congress has increased INS funding.
As a result, recruits emerging from the academy don't get the close attention they need from experienced agents, says T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing agents.
INS training is inadequate and emphasizes the wrong things.
Bill Carroll, a former INS academy instructor and district director in Washington, D.C., says the curriculum should be broadened to include more material helpful to understanding immigrants and their motives.
"If you're taught that, 'Hey, you're here as the guardian at the gate,' and that's all you know, it's like you're the bouncer at the bar," Carroll says. "If you understand the reasons for immigration, then you're not going to take it out personally on the people."
Low pay makes it hard to recruit the best people.
Starting INS inspectors earn less than $30,000 a year during their first two years, compared to $39,000 for FBI agents.
The law encourages the dark side of INS culture.
Foreigners must convince inspectors that they are eligible to enter the country. Foreigners not yet admitted to the country aren't protected by the Constitution.
"You're the only law-enforcement officer in the country that is charged with determining if somebody's going to do something that's against the law," says Noel Induni, INS officer in charge of 16 U.S.-Canada entry ports near St. Albans, Vt. "You've got to make a decision usually within 30 seconds whether to send a person into secondary inspection or admit them."
Supervisors evaluate officers differently in different districts.
Inspectors at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for example, can win promotions and cash awards when they cause the rejection of at least 21 percent more foreigners than the airport average.
Congress compounded the potential for abuse in 1996 when it gave officers the power to deport foreigners without court review. And INS inspectors deal with non-citizens who are essentially powerless, unlike the taxpayers, voters and businesspeople who encounter the Internal Revenue Service or other federal agencies.
"You don't get in the same trouble if you're abusive with an alien," says Philip Heymann, the Harvard professor, "as if you're abusive with citizens."
But the INS was in trouble long before 1996. Sid Lezak, U.S. Attorney for Oregon from 1961 to 1982, saw a clear gap between the professionalism required of INS officers and those of other agencies.
"Even in the FBI and the DEA," Lezak says, "many of the agents had a degree of humanity that was lacking to some extent in the INS."
Portland problems mount
The problems Lezak encountered in Portland haven't gone away. A series of highly publicized cases focused public attention this year on excesses by INS inspectors at Portland International Airport.
More revelations seem likely. Unpublicized investigations -- including ones by the INS internal audit office, the Equal Employment Opportunity office, the Federal Labor Relations Authority and possibly the Justice Department inspector general -- are zeroing in on the Portland district's detention and deportation section.
Charity Reeves, a former Portland detention enforcement officer, says the section suffers from an attitude of superiority toward foreigners that encourages misconduct and abuse. Reeves left the INS after suffering a disabling knee injury at the officers' academy. "When you deal with people every day who you think are less than you," Reeves says, "it gives you a certain power pump."
Reeves, 31, worked for the INS from March 1998 to March of this year. A former U.S. Army supply sergeant at Fort Bragg, N.C., she and other officers say racial slurs, abuse and misconduct were common in the Portland office.
For example, Reeves recalls Roger Pelletier, a detention enforcement officer at the time, telling her that there were, as she remembers his words, "two things that he could not stand, and that was niggers and white trash." Another officer says Pelletier told him and a fellow officer the same thing on different occasions. Pelletier, who has since been promoted to supervise a dozen officers who guard, process and transport detainees, declines to comment.
Reeves filed a statement with the INS workers' union, saying Pelletier sexually harassed her, smacking her buttocks and feeling her inner and outer thigh. In the statement, Reeves also charges that Pelletier acknowledged at a staff meeting last year that he had made the racial statement numerous times. She says Pelletier castigated an officer who criticized him at the meeting, accusing the officer of betrayal.
INS investigators have completed a report on her allegations. The Oregonian requested it in October under the Freedom of Information Act, and Reeves signed a statement permitting the release of the document, but the INS hasn't acted on the request. The agency deleted findings concerning the detention/deportation section from another investigative report released under the act.
Pelletier has been transferred temporarily to instruct detention officers at the INS advanced training academy in Artesia, N.M. Supervisors say the transfer is not a disciplinary action.
In addition to these allegations, other reports suggest a pattern of misconduct and slipshod practices in the Portland district. According to police and court records, Oscar Villa, a deportation officer, was arrested July 29 in Clark County, Wash., and accused of driving an INS car while drunk. He told the arresting officer that he was driving the government vehicle home from an INS awards ceremony. Villa admitted the crime and entered a court-ordered alcohol-treatment program, prosecutors say.
The internal audit office is investigating Villa's case, according to Charles DeMore, acting INS Portland district director.
The office is also investigating allegations that an officer improperly discharged a firearm in 1995, DeMore says, during what co-workers describe as an attempted escape by a detainee in downtown Portland. Investigators will examine why the allegation didn't surface until this October, he says.
"The people who covered it up in a sense are as culpable as those who did it, if in fact it happened," DeMore says. He says that these sorts of incidents do not typify INS workers' conduct, and adds that some other recent investigations have not substantiated several additional allegations made by employees.
Employees say that during a staff meeting June 5, supervisory detention/deportation officer Paige Edenfield told Portland officers that it was unprofessional to visit strip joints and prostitutes and get drunk while escorting deportees abroad. After that, officers stopped tossing condoms into mailboxes of colleagues departing on foreign trips, one of the officers who participated in the prank says.
Edenfield declines all comment.
A hotel bill for Mike Greene, a detention enforcement officer who traveled to Costa Rica on such a trip last year, shows a charge for an extra guest, using a code that hotel workers say was often used to note a visit by a woman engaged in legalized prostitution.
"If in fact that's happening," Greene says, "I'm a good-looking guy, and I'm able to meet women, and I've done that. There's nothing that says I can't invite somebody to a room, my room, and have a nice evening."
Questionable judgment figures in other INS incidents. Robert Shannon was Portland assistant district director for detention and deportation in 1997, when INS agents planned an elaborate raid on a Clackamas County migrant camp. Agents obtained a sealed search warrant and flew in INS officers from around the West to help. But they called off the raid, saying Shannon had contacted the Mexican and Guatemalan consulates.
Shannon was transferred to Puerto Rico and then promoted to INS director of removal operations in Washington, D.C. He says he merely contacted the consulates to make sure officials would be available to process a busload of detainees. The agency has not released a report on the incident to The Oregonian.
Anyway, Shannon says, the Portland district has had worse problems, such as the 1992 conviction of his predecessor, Olen Ray Jones, for sexually abusing an 11-year-old Mexican girl whose parents sought work permits from the INS.
Racial incidents and corruption among Portland INS officers extend at least as far back as the 1950s, says Fred Caramela, a retired immigration inspector. Caramela, 72, began as an INS stenographer in 1952 and worked until 1983.
"I used to go on raids with them," says Caramela, an Italian American with a tan complexion, "and twice they shoved me into a county cell with all the Mexicans and thought it was a big joke because the jailer didn't know who I was."
More recently, an INS officer policing a line of applicants outside the agency's Chicago office was equally unsuspecting, according to one of those in line. She cut off service at 10:30 a.m. July 7, 1999, and told the applicants, who had started lining up at 4 a.m., to disperse.
"I didn't move fast enough," says the woman who was waiting. "So she sticks her finger in my face and says, 'Move, or go to jail.' "
The woman started to respond. The INS officer cut her off and asked, "Well, who are you?"
"First of all," said the woman, "I'm a human being. And nobody should be talked to that way.
"And secondly, I'm a member of the U.S. Congress."
The woman was, in fact, Rep. Janice Schakowsky, the Democratic congresswoman deluged with constituent complaints about the INS. She'd paid an incognito visit to the Chicago office to check out the service for herself.
The INS officer hastened to explain the treatment was even-handed. "She says, 'Well,' " Schakowsky recalls, " 'I talk to everybody that way.' "
