[Senate Hearing 107-490]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-490
CONFIRMATION HEARING ON THE NOMINATION OF JAMES W. ZIGLAR TO BE
COMMISSIONER OF THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 18, 2001
__________
Serial No. J-107-31
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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WASHINGTON : 2002
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware STROM THURMOND, South Carolina
HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JON KYL, Arizona
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York MIKE DeWINE, Ohio
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
Bruce A. Cohen, Majority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Sharon Prost, Minority Chief Counsel
Makan Delrahim, Minority Staff Director
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Brownback, Hon. Sam, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas..... 7
DeWine, Hon. Mike, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio......... 12
Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 11
Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah...... 10
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 5
Kyl, Hon. Jon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Arizona.......... 69
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 8
PRESENTERS
Cochran, Hon. Thad, a U.S. Senator from the State of Mississippi. 4
Daschle, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from the State of South Dakota. 3
Lott, Hon. Trent, a U.S. Senator from the State of Mississippi... 1
STATEMENT OF THE NOMINEE
Ziglar, James W., of Mississippi, Nominee to be Commissioner of
the Immigration and Naturalization Service..................... 13
Questionnaire................................................ 20
CONFIRMATION HEARING ON THE NOMINATION OF JAMES W. ZIGLAR TO BE
COMMISSIONER OF THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2001
United States Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m., in
Room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Edward M.
Kennedy, presiding.
Present: Senators Kennedy, Leahy, Durbin, Hatch, Kyl,
DeWine, and Brownback.
Senator Kennedy. We will come to order. We are delighted to
make some opening comments, which I will in just a moment. But
we have some very special presenters here who have extremely
important responsibilities in leadership in the Senate. I would
say in the 39 years that I have been here, I have not seen the
Majority and Minority Leaders appear with the strong, strong
support of a very distinguished senior Senator as well, Thad
Cochran, to get a nominee off to a good start. So we will
listen carefully to the presentation here. But I think all of
us on the Judiciary Committee and all the Members of the Senate
have known what our three important leaders will comment on. We
have a very unique and special nominee who has some very
special skills and is willing to take on important
responsibilities. But we will hear now from his friend, Senator
Trent Lott. We are glad to have you here. Senator Cochran,
welcome. Senator Daschle, I will say more about you in just a
minute.
If you would be good enough to proceed, we would be glad to
hear your comments.
STATEMENT OF HON. TRENT LOTT, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
MISSISSIPPI
Senator Lott. Thank you very much, Senator Kennedy, for
having an expeditious hearing, and I thank my senior colleague
from Mississippi for allowing me to go ahead and get started.
Senator Kennedy, I know over the years you have had a lot
of friends in the Senate that some people would be surprised to
find out about. We knew in Mississippi that you had a good
relationship with a Senator named Jim Eastland. In fact, you
came down to the university when I was a student there. I was
one of the demonstrators, you will remember, outside there.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lott. But you came at the request of Senator
Eastland, and so if you have ever been in the Sergeant-at-Arms
office, you will notice there is a very large portrait there,
but it is not of yours truly or Senator Cochran. It is of
Senator Jim Eastland.
So I had planned to support this nominee, but now realizing
he actually has as much or more support on the Democratic side
of the aisle as the Republican side, I am re-evaluating that.
And I will take advantage of this opportunity to roast the
nominee in the way that he truly deserves.
No, let me just say, Senator Kennedy I am delighted to be
here and join friends and family to support Jim Ziglar to be
the head of INS, Immigration and Naturalization Service. I have
no doubt that he will be outstanding in that position.
Now, I must confess, when he first came to me and suggested
he might be willing to do that or would want to do that, I
questioned his sanity. And I said, ``You know, you have already
taken on a couple of tough jobs in the past. Are you sure you
want to do this?'' And he said, yes, he did, because he thought
it was an important position, it could be a real challenge, and
he would like to have the opportunity.
So I am glad to be here, and I can vouch for his intellect,
his ability, his education, his fortitude, all of these
tremendous things to describe his background. But I also can
attest to the fact that he has always been one to be willing to
take on a difficult task. He was the newspaper boy in our
neighborhood, and he was very aggressive. I don't think we ever
had a newspaper person that knocked out more windows in his
years in that position. And he attempted to sing in the First
Baptist Church choir that I was singing in. So I know him very
well from a long time ago.
But out of in respect for his wife--his very charming wife
is here--I won't reveal all that I know. But his father and my
father worked in the shipyard--a couple of blue-collar guys. We
grew up in the small town in Pascagoula, and I watched him grow
and create a tremendous record in high school. And then he came
to George Washington University, worked for Senator Eastland,
went to law school, graduated from law school, was a clerk for
Justice Blackmun, and there he began to get the kind of
experience he can put to use in this Administration. By the
way, he also worked for the Judiciary Committee on the
Judiciary Committee staff. He has some background in dealing
with the judicial and immigration issues which he will face at
INS, having worked on Judiciary, having served as a clerk with
Justice Blackmun.
He got out in the private sector and did quite well as an
attorney, worked in the Reagan years as Assistant Secretary of
Interior in Water Resources, most of his work being in the
western areas. And those are certainly not easy tasks to deal
with. He did a marvelous job there managing people and getting
results on these very important water projects out in the West.
He was also very successful subsequently on Wall Street,
and then a few years ago I called him and said we need a
Sergeant at Arms with experience managing people, who can
provide leadership, deal with security and make sure that the
Sergeant at Arms of the Senate in a bipartisan way does the
job--one that will be respected on both sides of the aisle. And
so he took on that task, and he has just done an outstanding
job.
I believe, as you have said, on both sides of the aisle
Senators admire and appreciate him and are thankful that he is
willing to take on this important task.
So I am delighted to be here and support Jim Ziglar for
this position. I know he will do a good job. I know he will
undertake the assignment with great vigor. I know he will stay
in touch with the Congress as we try to help him make sure that
we have rules and regulations that are understandable, that are
sensible, and that will help the people.
So I am delighted to be here. Thank you for having the
hearing, and I really appreciate the fact that Senator Daschle
also is here to support this nominee.
Thank you.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Senator Lott. We appreciate
your mentioning how quickly we are going to have the hearing
and how quickly we are going to get this out and how quickly we
are going to consider him on the Senate floor. That is what
Senator Daschle tries to do with all the nominees that we have
here.
[Laughter.]
Senator Lott. We do have 120 others we would like to talk
to you about.
Senator Kennedy. We have been joined by Senator Leahy and
Senator Hatch. We will look forward to hearing from our
Majority Leader. We thank him very much. As I mentioned before,
this is an extraordinary tribute to a nominee, and with the
understanding of Senator Cochran, who we would recognize, if
you will extend the courtesy, we would welcome the fact to hear
from our friend and colleague, Senator Daschle.
Tom, thank you for coming.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOM DASCHLE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
SOUTH DAKOTA
Senator Daschle. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of
the committee, thank you. I think that all that is left to be
said is, ``Amen. Let's vote.''
I think that Senator Lott has said it so well. No one in
this room knows Jim Ziglar better than does Senator Lott, but I
have come to know him quite well over the last several years
and respect him immensely. The job of Sergeant at Arms is a
difficult job, but Jim Ziglar has handled it admirably and
handled it in a way that we would expect--in a bipartisan, very
professional way.
He has worked with and for Democrats and Republicans
throughout his career. He has worked both in the private sector
as well as in the public sector. He has had challenges dealing
with management as well as challenges dealing with major
decisions involving the fiscal needs of our country. And I
think he has handled each and every one of them extremely well.
So Senator Lott is right. This man is especially prepared
and I think most able to take on these new responsibilities. So
I only come before the committee to say a few words and I
especially appreciate Senator Cochran's willingness to allow me
to do so.
I have a longer statement that I will submit for the
record, but I am grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, for expediting
this hearing, and I will say I think Democrats and Republicans
can unanimously support this man. He warrants our support, and
it is with enthusiasm that I support him this afternoon.
[The prepared statement of Senator Daschle follows:]
Statement of Hon. Tom Daschle a U.S. Senator from the State of South
Dakota
From 1998 to 2001, James Ziglar served as the Senate's
Sergeant at Arms. He came to the Senate after a long and
distinguished career in law and business. After graduating from
law school from George Washington University in 1972, he served
as an aide to former Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.). After that
he did a brief stint at the Justice Department as special
assistant for Legislative and Public Affairs, and served as law
clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court. He
then worked for two well respected law firms.
In the 1980s, Jim began his career in the financial
services industry, working for Dillon, Read & Co. and then
Paine Webber. The financial and management skills he gained
served this Senate well.
Jim and his wife are active in their community, their
church and various non-profit endeavors. Jim has served various
natural resource organizations, including: the National Water
Resources Association and the American Water Foundation, and a
number of organizations that help the poor overseas, such as
Mercy International Health Services. Locally, Jim and his wife,
Linda, are active volunteers for Christmas in April. He has
also been active in the Baptist and Presbyterian Churches.
Jim has also been instrumental in developing a program that
is near and dear to me and the people of my state: ``Dakota
Heart,'' a partnership between hospitals in North and South
Dakota and hospitals in Poland to provide training for
cardiologists and cardiac surgeons in Poland.
Jim's tenure here in the Senate has been one which will be
remembered fondly by members on both sides of the aisle. He has
assisted Democratic and Republican Senators with their many
needs over the years--including the need for advice on
clothing, and ties--and has always done so with efficiency,
attention to detail, and good humor.
For those of us who know Jim, we know that his passion for
public service is matched only by his love for his pet pig,
porkchop. If you ever discuss this animal with Jim, you realize
that his affection is such that ``porkchop'' is its name--but
will never be its destiny.
So now it is my distinct pleasure to introduce a friend,
colleague, and a dedicated public servant--a man whose
distinguished service I have every expectation will continue as
commissioner of the INS. . . Jim Ziglar.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much to both of our
Leaders. We know you have other responsibilities, so we thank
you very much for taking time and making time. It is an
extraordinary tribute to our nominee, and we are grateful to
you. We will excuse you because we know you have to be on your
way.
We will hear now from a good friend, Senator Cochran. Thank
you very much for joining us, and we look forward to your
comments.
STATEMENT OF HON. THAD COCHRAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF MISSISSIPPI
Senator Cochran. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am
pleased to be invited to be here today at this hearing, and I
am very proud to endorse the nomination of Jim Ziglar to be
Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
I have not known Jim as long or as well as my colleague,
Senator Lott, but I know from those who have worked closely
with Jim over the years and my own personal observations since
I came to Washington in 1973 about his diligence, his
competence, his integrity, his ability to get things done under
tough circumstances. He came to the Senate at a time when we
really needed somebody like Jim Ziglar in this job. I don't
want to dredge up unpopular or unpleasant recollections, but
the impeachment challenge that we were faced with in the early
days of his tenure as Sergeant-at-Arms called on him to come up
with a strategy and a plan, work closely with Democrats and
Republicans, the leadership of the Senate, and across the
Capitol with Bill Livingood over on the House side who was in
charge of security.
He did all this in a calm, thoughtful, serious way and
reflected a great deal of credit, I think, on the institution
of the United States Senate. So I was very pleased to see him
discharge those responsibilities in a way that made Mississippi
look good. We were very proud of him as a native of our State.
Incidentally, you know, when Senator Eastland was chairman
of the Judiciary Committee, his principal interest, as many of
you know--and I know the chairman remembers--was the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. And Jim Ziglar had the
responsibility of being a member of that staff to work closely
with the then-Commissioner of INS. So I am very comfortable
with the notion that he is qualified for this job and by his
experience and his ability and intelligence will do an
excellent job in this capacity. So I recommend him without any
qualifications except to say that we are very pleased with the
dispatch that you have entertained the nomination and arranged
this hearing. We appreciate the committee's attention to this
nomination very much.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much, Senator Cochran.
Those are important observations, and I think all of us who
remember that time understand very well what you were talking
about, the very important contributions that Mr. Ziglar made to
the decorum and to the workings and functionings of the Senate,
a very valuable observation. We thank you very much.
We have been joined by Senator DeWine and Senator Durbin. I
see Senator Symms also is here present in the audience today.
We are always glad to have him back in the Senate.
I would ask our nominee, Jim, if you would be good enough
to come forward. Before asking you to give a brief comment, I
would like to make a brief opening statement. Then I would ask
you if you would be good enough to introduce your wife who is
here. We welcome Mrs. Ziglar as well.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Kennedy. It is a privilege to chair this hearing on
the nomination of Jim Ziglar to be the next Commissioner of the
INS. Mr. Ziglar has a distinguished record as a fair,
effective, experienced manager, and he has demonstrated his
ability to work well with Members of the Senate on both sides
of the aisle.
As the head of the INS, Mr. Ziglar will be instrumental in
influencing immigration policy, including reform of the INS.
Many of us feel that the time has long come to divide the
agency into two separate bureaus, with clear chains of
command--one for services and one for enforcement. These
functions will need to be coordinated at the top by a strong
Administrator responsible for the supervision and management of
the entire agency and implementation of the Nation's
immigration policy.
We also feel that the service functions must be adequately
funded. Sole reliance on application fees to fund the
processing of all immigration applications has not worked, and
as we know from the long backlogs and delays facing immigrants
who apply for permanent residence or citizenship, help needs to
be there.
Clearly, additional funds are needed to reduce the massive
backlogs, upgrade computer and telecommunications systems, and
fund other improvements. Without these changes, the high fees,
long backlogs, and unresponsive service will continue to plague
the INS.
We also need to deal with other important areas of
immigration reform, such as enabling qualified persons to
adjust their immigration status while in the United States
without being required to leave the country or be separated
from loved ones.
I am very encouraged by the developments in the U.S.-Mexico
migration discussions. As part of these negotiations, the issue
of a temporary worker has been suggested. Clearly, it should
include strong protections for both U.S. and foreign workers
and appropriate legalization provisions for undocumented
workers currently employed and residing in the United States.
Finally, we must repeal the unfair provisions enacted by
Congress in 1996 that continue to violate basic values such as
family unity, individual liberty, and due process.
So I look forward to today's hearing and to working closely
with Mr. Ziglar and the administration to achieve these
important goals. Immigration continues to be an indispensable
part of our Nation's heritage and history, and we must do all
we can to see that our laws are fair and consistent with the
Nation's fundamental values.
I want to just mention also at the outset, in looking over
the qualifications for Mr. Ziglar, I have taken note that he
has involvement in a personal way in voluntary services,
particularly overseas, and at the end of his comments, I will
have a chance, but I want to mention this because I found it
very impressive and it made a very important impression on me.
He has been involved in various organizations assisting the
poor overseas, serving on the Board of Mercy International
Health Services, which provides health care services in poor
and developing countries. He has also been involved in the Dui
Hua Foundation in its efforts to identify and bring attention
to the plight of political prisoners in the People's Republic
of China. He also has been involved in the Adobe Foundation
that provides housing and education for orphans in Romania and
assisting in developing a program of cooperation between
hospitals in North and South Dakota and hospitals in Poland to
provide training for cardiologists and cardiac surgeons.
I had just a few moments to talk with him about these
matters, and I hope later on after he gives his opening
statement he might share some of these experiences. He has
clearly demonstrated over his lifetime a strong commitment in
terms of public service, and this is very impressive. And he
has not only walked that walk, but he has demonstrated in his
private life this continuing, ongoing concern for humanity. It
is really enormously impressive. So we will look forward to his
statement and to his appearance.
Senator Brownback?
STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF KANSAS
Senator Brownback. If I could add a short opening
statement, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Ziglar. We are
delighted to have you here.
I think what people are going to find, as they see you take
over in the Commissioner's position, is a man with a great head
and a great heart both. And that is a wonderful combination.
You are seeing that in the actions that people are talking
about that you have done in your past, and I think they can
look forward to that in the future.
I am delighted to have you here, delighted for a man of
your background and your expertise to be taking over this
position. I will be strongly supporting your nomination for the
Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
I want to bring to your attention a couple of items. I have
had the opportunity to visit with Mr. Ziglar several times
already about his work or hopefully upcoming work, should he be
approved by the Senate, which I have no doubt will take place,
in some keys areas that we both share common interest and
concern about.
First, in the area of humans rights areas, INS faces many
responsibilities as the U.S. Government entity that often comes
in the closest contact with victims of persecution. On May 3rd,
this subcommittee held a hearing on asylum policy, and we heard
testimony that genuine refugees from time to time may be
mistakenly deported by INS inspectors, that some asylum seekers
are treated improperly during the airport inspections, and that
many asylum seekers are detained in penal-like conditions well
beyond the time needed to determine their identity and
establish whether they have a credible fear of persecution
should they return to their homeland. A number of former asylum
seekers gave moving testimony at that hearing, and I am
confident that our nominee will do all he can to address in a
meaningful way the issues of expedited removal and the
detention of asylum seekers.
A second issue that we have had an opportunity to discuss
that I am looking forward to working with you on is on health
care providers in the United States. I come from a rural State,
and many of our health care providers in rural areas are
foreign-born doctors. We are heavily dependent upon them, and
we are heavily dependent upon foreign-born people to provide
health care in this country. It is a vital issue in my home
State as well as in the States of many Members of the U.S.
Senate. There is an extraordinary shortage, particularly in
rural areas, and we need to address this particular problem as
well.
A third issue that I join my colleague, the chairman of the
committee, in noting is that I am heartened to hear that the
President has identified addressing the processing backlogs at
INS as an administration priority. The problem of processing
delays and inadequate customer services at INS is a
consistently large portion of the constituent service caseload
in my State. It is the second highest area of constituent
services problem questions that I get behind Veterans
Administration. Sometimes Congress can act alone to address
this problem, such as in last year's H-1B visa bill, where we
enabled existing H-1B visa holders to take a new job offer
prior to the completion of his or her paperwork at INS. But in
many cases, providing relief from Congress is not possible.
That is when we must turn to the INS with our sincerest hopes
for improvement in this particular area.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me close with a reference to Mr.
Ziglar's written statement where he talks about America being a
shining city on a hill. That was a phrase that we are all
familiar with. It is a biblical phrase. It was also one used by
Ronald Reagan in his final speech to the Nation, where he did
indeed say that he saw America as a shining city on a hill, and
he said--and this is a quote: ``And if this city has walls, the
walls have doors. And the doors are open to those with the
energy and the will and the heart to get in.''
That's the way I saw it, and that's the way I see it. I
also believe that Mr. Jim Ziglar, in taking this position, sees
it exactly that way, and that is when we operate the best, when
America appeals to the hope in men's hearts rather than the
fear that may be in their eyes.
I look forward to working with you in this important
position for the future of our country.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much.
We have Senator Leahy, the chairman of the full committee,
here. We would welcome to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF VERMONT
Chairman Leahy. I am simply going to put my statement in
the record. I know that you and Senator Brownback and I have
been working on legislation along the lines of the Refugee
Protection Act that we introduced in the last Congress. We will
want to work with you on that.
I have been chairing a hearing on the FBI, and I am going
to have to go back to some aspects of that now, besides which I
read in the New York Times this morning that you are
controversial, so I would much rather let Ted and Sam take over
the hearing and let them worry about that.
I should note, though, for the record, Mr. Chairman, in
seriousness, in following up on what my good friend Thad
Cochran said about the situation during impeachment, I was very
much involved with a number of the aspects of that, including
the depositions that took place. I said then privately to Mr.
Ziglar, and I want to say it publicly--I know, in fact, Senator
DeWine is here. He and I were put in charge, one for the
Republicans, one for the Democrats, of handling a very delicate
and very sensitive part of that whole situation. I told Mr.
Ziglar at the time he handled it more professionally than I
ever could have imagined anybody could, but also did it without
even a hint, publicly or privately, of partisanship. He did it
with the most professional aspect of the Senate. He was there
to protect the Senate's role. He did that. I don't think--and I
think Senator DeWine would agree with me. There was never any
indication to either side of any political bias.
[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy follows:]
Statement of Hon. Patrick Leahy, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Vermont
The nomination of James Ziglar to be Commissioner of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service is a very important one
for our nation and for Vermont. The next Commissioner will hold
office at a pivotal time for the agency and for immigration
policy in the United States. The Administration has expressed
interest in reorganizing the INS and having the new
Commissioner implement the reorganization plan. The new
Commissioner will also inherit a number of questionable
immigration policies that Congress enacted five years ago in
the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility
Act. In addition, many important immigration issues, including
the way in which the United States should treat undocumented
workers from Mexico and other nations, remained unresolved at
the end of the last Congress and promise to be major issues
during the coming years.
We are fortunate in the Senate to have the benefit of
Senator Kennedy and Senator Brownback serving as Chairman and
Ranking Member of this Committee's immigration subcommittee,
and I am confident that the nominee will find them to be
extraordinarily helpful and dedicated. The nominee will also
benefit from the interest in immigration issues in both
parties, as Congress should be ready to provide the INS with
the resources it needs to achieve its mission. And the new
Commissioner will also find that there are many fine men and
women and well-run offices and programs at the INS, including
the Law Enforcement Support Center, the Vermont Service Center
and Sub-Office, the Debt Management Center, the Eastern
Regional Office, and the Swanton Border Patrol Sector, all
located in my State of Vermont.
We in the Senate know Mr. Ziglar well from his time as
Sergeant at Arms. The last few years in the Senate have been
difficult and partisan, but Jim Ziglar found a way to serve
everyone. During the impeachment trial, the American people saw
Chief Justice Rehnquist presiding. They did not see all the
work that Jim Ziglar did behind the scenes to make a difficult
process run as smoothly as possible. We here all owe him a debt
of gratitude for his hard and effective work.
Before he came to the Senate, Jim Ziglar had a long and
distinguished career in investment banking and the law, and
served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and
Science during the Reagan Administration. He also was a law
clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun.
He has chosen to take on a new challenge with the INS, and
although I am sure that many of us on the Committee will have a
number of questions about his views on immigration matters, I
applaud his willingness to head the agency during what promises
to be an eventful period.
One of the bigger issues facing the next Commissioner will
be restructuring the INS. I strongly support improving the
agency and giving it the resources it needs. The tasks we ask
the INS to do range from processing citizenship applications to
protecting our borders, and I agree that there are some
internal tensions in the INS' mission that might be resolved. I
also believe, however, that we must ensure that the INS does
not lose its strengths, which I think are well represented by
the great efficiency of the INS offices in Vermont. I intend to
play an active role in the development and consideration of any
INS reorganization plan.
In addition to ensuring a fair and sensible organization, I
have a number of other legislative priorities for this Congress
that I would like to raise today, and I want to ask the
Administration and the nominee for their help in making them
law. First, Senator Brownback and I, along with Senator Kennedy
and others, are developing legislation along the lines of the
Refugee Protection Act that we introduced in the last Congress.
I hope that this legislation will accomplish a number of needed
goals, including restricting the use of expedited removal to
times of immigration emergencies and reducing the use of
detention against people seeking asylum.
The use of expedited removal, the process under which
aliens arriving in the United States can be returned
immediately to their native lands at the say-so of a low-level
INS officer, calls the United States' commitment to refugees
into serious question. Since Congress adopted expedited removal
in 1996, we have had a system where we are removing people who
arrive here either without proper documentation or with
facially valid documentation that an INS officer simply
suspects is invalid. This policy ignores the fact that people
fleeing despotic regimes are quite often unable to obtain
travel documents before leaving--they must move quickly and
cannot depend upon the government that is persecuting them to
provide them with the proper paperwork for departure. In the
limited time that expedited removal has been in operation, we
already have received reliable reports that valid asylum
seekers have been denied admission to our country without the
opportunity to convince an immigration judge that they faced
persecution in their native lands. To provide just one example,
a Kosovar Albanian was summarily removed from the U.S. after
the civil war in Kosovo had already made the front pages of
America's newspapers. I believe we must address this issue in
this Congress.
Second, I hope that this Congress will examine some of the
other serious due process concerns created by passage of the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996.
Through those laws, Congress expanded the pool of people who
could be deported, denied those people the chance for due
process before deportation, and made these changes retroactive,
so that legal permanent residents who had committed offenses so
minor that they did not even serve jail time suddenly faced
removal from the United States. The Supreme Court has recently
limited some of the retroactive effects of those laws, in INS
v. St. Cyr, but there is more work to do to bring these laws
into line with our historic commitment to immigration. This-new
legal regime has created numerous horror stories, including the
removal of noncitizen veterans of the American armed forces for
minor crimes committed well before 1996. In the last Congress,
I introduced a bill that would have guaranteed due process
rights for veterans, a bill that was supported by the American
Legion and other veterans' groups, and I plan to introduce
similar legislation this year. In addition, I am a proud
cosponsor of Senator Kennedy's Immigrant Fairness Restoration
Act, which would restore a broad range of due process rights to
immigrants. Third, I have introduced S. 864, the Anti-atrocity
Alien Deportation Act, which makes aliens who commit acts of
torture, extrajudicial killings, or other atrocities abroad
inadmissible to and removable from the United States, and
establishes within the Criminal Division of the Department of
Justice an Office of Special Investigations with responsibility
over all alien participants in war crimes, genocide, and the
commission of acts of torture and extrajudicial killings
abroad. This legislation passed the Senate in 1999 and now has
bipartisan support in the House. I hope that it will become law
this year.
Fourth, the Senate needs to act quickly and approve S. 778,
legislation introduced by Senators Kennedy and Hagel to extend
the deadline for people seeking to adjust their immigration
status under section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act. Section 245(i) allows people who are eligible to become
legal permanent residents of the United States to apply for
that status from within the country, instead of having to
return to their home countries to do so. This policy keeps
families together, allows employers to retain valued employees
without interruption, and raises substantial revenue for the
Treasury through the $1000 fees that applicants must pay. This
provision, which had previously been repealed, was restored for
a four-month period at the end of the last Congress and has now
expired again. There is bipartisan agreement in the Senate that
that four-month period was insufficient, and that we should
extend the program for another year. I plan to help Senators
Kennedy and Hagel move this legislation through the Committee
as quickly as possible, and I hope that the full Senate will
act on it promptly.
Finally, there are other outstanding issues from the Latino
and Immigrant Fairness Act, which so many of us strongly
supported in the last Congress, that we must resolve. First, we
need to figure out a way to allow some undocumented workers to
adjust their immigration status. The White House is apparently
considering taking steps with regard to undocumented workers
from Mexico. I am encouraged by the White House's apparent
interest in this issue, but I believe that we should treat
undocumented workers equally, without regard to their native
country. Second, we need to change our law so that immigrants
who fled from right-wing governments in Haiti, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Honduras, and Liberia are treated the same way under
our immigration law as we treat those who fled left-wing
governments in Nicaragua and Cuba. Last year, we had the strong
support of the Clinton Administration on this issue, and I hope
that the Bush Administration will look closely at the issue and
reach the same conclusions.
In conclusion, we have a lot of work to do on immigration
policy during this Congress and this Administration. From my
experience with the nominee, I am confident that he will be a
good partner in these efforts.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much.
Senator Hatch, we welcome you.
STATEMENT OF HON. ORRIN G. HATCH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF UTAH
Senator Hatch. Thank you, Senator Kennedy.
I just want to welcome you and your family here and just
let everybody know that we believe you have done a terrific job
here. You have the right combination of abilities and
management skills that really are needed at this very troubled
agency. It is in dire need of reform and direction.
Just to cite a couple of recent examples reported by the
media, in March of this year, the Department of Justice
Inspector General issued a report criticizing INS for its
inability to account for approximately 61,000 pieces of
property worth nearly $70 million. This figure includes more
than 500 weapons--six of which have been linked to crime--and
thousands of computers that may contain sensitive information.
And in June, the Department of Justice revealed that the INS
was deporting violent criminal aliens from the United States on
commercial airliners, without any escort whatsoever.
I don't think the INS can continue to function as a good
agency without well-defined direction, internal integrity, and,
of course, a commitment to serve, and dedication to fiscal
responsibility. I think you are the right person at the right
time for this job, and, frankly, I am very grateful that you
are willing to serve in this very difficult job. It is
demanding, it is difficult, and I have every confidence in the
world in you. I am just very grateful that you are willing to
take on this assignment and look forward to working with you.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much.
Senator Durbin?
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ILLINOIS
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to join the chorus of praise for Mr. Ziglar and his
service as Sergeant-at-Arms in the United States Senate. When I
saw Jim on the floor and learned that he was going to accept
this appointment, I told him--and I sincerely believe this--he
has accepted one of the toughest assignments in the Federal
Government. About three-fourths of the casework in my Senate
offices in Illinois relate to the INS. It is all about
immigration, visas. And we work more closely with that agency
than any other agency of the Federal Government. And I will
have to tell you that even though I was a strong supporter of
the Clinton administration, I had some very disappointing
experiences with the INS.
I spoke to Ms. Meissner about that. In fact, I reached a
point at one stage in the appropriations process where I
withheld several million dollars from the INS appropriation
demanding some changes in the way that they have treated
people. I thought that it had reached that point. I just don't
do that as a rule. I did it out of desperation.
I have to tell you, there is a lot of work in your agency.
I think many of your employees are overwhelmed. I assume that
is the reason they don't return phone calls. I hope that
changes. I hope that Members of Congress who call--and I hope
that it is not overworked, but on emergency situations receive
a response, because I don't pick up the phone unless I think
all else has been tried and the normal process has been
followed and there is just nowhere to turn. But I can tell you,
I have faced frustrations with the agency when they were
totally unresponsive in what I consider to be emergency
situations.
Secondly, you have been dealt a very tough hand of cards
here because you are being asked to enforce some laws that I
think are fundamentally unfair and unjust and unreasonable.
They are laws passed by this Congress during the Gingrich era
when there was talk about getting touch on immigrants. They are
laws that are just patently unfair and unreasonable to people
who are trying to do their very best to bring their family
together and to lead a good life.
I am troubled by one of those laws, which has basically
said that if you are an undocumented high school student who
has lived as long as 15 or 16 years in the United States, you
cannot qualify for in-state tuition at any college or
university, nor can you qualify for scholarship assistance. I
have met with these kids. They can't understand it. And when I
ask the INS what are these children supposed to do at this
point in their lives, they said, ``Go home.'' Well, the news,
of course, is they are home. They are here in the United
States, and they want to be educated, and they want to make a
life for themselves.
That is the kind of law which, unfortunately, has been sent
you way to enforce. I hope that you can work with us to not
only be responsive but also to talk about some modernization
and changes in these laws to deal with these situations which
are truly outrageous.
The quote from President Reagan, your own quote about the
city on the hill, is an inspiring one, and now it is a job for
all of us. As the son of immigrant, serving in the United
States Senate, I have a special sensitivity to this. I think
that all of us must remember where we came from and that
somebody in our background and our family decided to come to
this country and make a go of it, and that is why it is such a
great Nation.
But I am sure that you are going to be approved by the
Senate because it is a big cheering section for Jim Ziglar, as
it should be.
Thanks, The Chairman.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much.
Senator DeWine?
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DEWINE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
OHIO
Senator DeWine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Jim, we are delighted with your nomination. I had the same
experience that Senator Leahy did during the impeachment,
working very closely with you on one of the more delicate
assignments, and you carried that out with perfection and
impartiality. And I know that is how you are going to handle
the job as INS Director.
It is a tough job. You inherit an agency that is a mess.
Where do we start? Each one of us has had the same experience.
It is anecdotal, yes, when we look at our casework back in our
home States, but the substance of our casework involves human
beings. And I think that is what makes it so tough for all of
us, is that we are dealing with people's aspirations, their
goals, their families, their kids.
The anecdotal, frankly, has become the pattern. The pattern
has become the norm. It comes from a culture in your agency,
and your biggest job is to change that culture. Now, you have
got good people in there, but you have got to change the
culture. Part of it is Congress' fault. We need to change some
laws. And I intend to be a part of trying to do that this year,
working with the President, working with my colleagues. But a
lot of it is an attitude problem, and it is something that you
are going to have to address. I think the hardest thing for a
manager to do is to change a culture, and that is going to be
your main challenge.
I believe that the INS does need a new perspective, but I
also believe that you can provide that. There is a culture at
INS that really hinders its ability to carry out the spirit of
our immigration laws. These laws are really intended to create
an orderly process so that immigrant families can stay
together, foreign workers can come to the United States to
benefit them, but also to benefit our economy. And, finally,
those fleeing persecution from their home countries can find
refuge in this great country of ours that you have talked about
in your opening statement.
So I look forward to working with you. I think you are
going to do a good job. It is a challenging job, but we are
here to try to help you.
Thank you.
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Ziglar, we would be glad to hear from
you. We look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES W. ZIGLAR, NOMINEE TO BE COMMISSIONER
OF THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE
Mr. Ziglar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be
here today as President Bush's nominee to be Commissioner of
Immigration and Naturalization. I am grateful to the President
and to the Attorney General for the confidence that they have
expressed in me by nominating me for this job.
I also want to thank the previous panel of Senators that
were up here endorsing my nomination. Senator Steve Symms, who
was sitting right next to me--I guess he is gone--leaned over
to me and said, ``Boy, they really want to get rid of you.''
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ziglar. So I am not sure how you read their coming, but
I will take it as a compliment. Senator Lott and I, as all of
you know, have been friends for almost 50 years, though neither
of us look like we have reached 50s, I would hope.
Senator Cochran and I have been friends for a long time,
but not as long as Senator Lott, and he serves in the seat that
Jim Eastland held, who was chairman of this committee, as you
know.
And, of course, Senator Daschle is my newest of the three
friends, but we have had a great working relationship in the
last 2 years, and it has been an honor for the last, now, I
guess, 6 weeks to serve as the Sergeant at Arms under his
tutelage. He is a great fellow.
I do want to introduce my wife.
Senator Kennedy. Please.
Mr. Ziglar. This lovely creature back here is my wife,
Linda.
Senator Kennedy. You are very welcome. We are delighted to
have you here.
Mr. Ziglar. She is clearly the person that keeps me out of
trouble and my best advisor.
I also want to tell you that I have three sons, but because
of the scheduling, none of them could be here. However, I am
happy to report that they are gainfully employed and not on my
payroll. And, therefore, I excused them for not coming to this
hearing.
I also want to thank a number of friends here, including a
lot of Sergeant at Arms employees for coming today.
I also want to thank the members of this committee and a
lot of members who are not members of this committee for the
time they have given me to talk about INS issues in the last
period since I was nominated. I have learned an awful lot from
your perspective about these issues and how you deal with them
from a constituent point of view, and I have to tell you, that
has been very helpful. That is going to give me a head start on
prioritizing how I want to do things. It has been very valuable
to me. Everybody should have my experience of being right here
in the middle of this all and having a chance to see as many
members as I have because it really is a great head start. And
I urge you to talk to nominees when you have got a chance
before they come into the job because it is very helpful.
Certainly to me it was.
I also want to thank the Senate for the opportunity of
being Sergeant at Arms. I have made a lot of friends on both
sides, and that has been the greatest part of this experience.
Senator Kennedy, at the possibility of appearing to pander,
I want to tell you how pleased I am that you are chairing this
hearing because, if my memory serves me correctly, you are the
only sitting Senator currently who was a member of this
committee in the 1960s when I was a young fellow working on the
staff of the committee. In fact, I used to sit, as you know,
right behind the chairman where this young man is sitting,
right next to Senator Everett Dirksen, the chairman and the
ranking member. And I had a very important job. My job was to
keep Jim Eastland in cigars and to hold a pack of cigarettes
for Everett Dirksen, because Senator Dirksen had emphysema and
he was always trying to quit smoking. And he would tell me--he
would give me his cigarettes and say, ``Now, only give me one
cigarette during this hearing.'' And, of course, by the end of
it, we got in a fistfight over how many he was going to smoke.
But I tell you what, that was a great experience. It was my
first experience with bipartisanship.
Senator Kennedy. I think that was up until about 5:00 in
the afternoon.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ziglar. I wasn't going to bring that up.
I am sure, Senator Kennedy, you also don't remember that in
1972, you honored me by accepting an invitation to come over to
the Supreme Court and have a closed lunch with Supreme Court
law clerks. You remember that? Well, at that time, as you know,
I was clerking for Mr. Justice Blackmun. I want to tell you
that after that, my colleagues, my fellow clerks over there,
thought, Boy, Ziglar is a big hitter, he can get Kennedy over
here. And I want to tell you, Senator, I appreciate it and I
made good use of it.
Senator Kennedy. You hear that, Orrin?
[Laughter.]
Senator Hatch. I have made good use of it myself.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hatch. All to my detriment, though.
Mr. Ziglar. Mr. Chairman, I have submitted a written
statement for the record. Those words in there are all my
words. I obviously paraphrased from the Bible and from Ronald
Reagan, but those are my words, and I would appreciate it if
those words could be included in the record.
Senator Kennedy. Yes, they will be.
Mr. Ziglar. Mr. Chairman, I didn't seek this job, but I am
enthusiastic about doing it. Together with the Congress, the
President, the Attorney General, and the very dedicated
employees at the INS, I think we can make a big difference in
the lives of millions of Americans and millions of potential
Americans. And that is why I accepted this nomination.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that America ought to be welcoming
to immigrants and that we ought to be proud of the fact that
people around this world want to come to the United States,
that we are a magnet for those people.
Now, I think people of good faith everywhere hope that
someday in this world every place is going to have freedom and
prosperity and peace. But until we have that time, I hope that
this country always is the beacon of hope and freedom for those
people.
Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of goals for the INS, if you
folks decide to give me a tenure over there, and I wanted to
give you a summary of my overarching goals. These are the big
goals, and as you can figure out when you hear them, they have
lots of little sub-parts to them, which obviously we don't have
time, at least in my opening statement, to talk about.
The first one is that I want every person who comes in
contact with the INS, no matter what the context is that they
come in contact with the INS, to be treated with respect and
dignity. One issue I do want to highlight, Mr. Chairman--and
you and I have talked about it, and I know that several
Senators here, Senator DeWine, Senator Hatch, Senator
Brownback, and others I have talked with, a particular interest
is the detention and expedited removal issue. I am very
concerned about that in particular reference to where children
and asylum seekers are part of that issue. I think we need to
be careful how we treat children that come within the
jurisdiction of the INS, and I definitely think that we need to
change the process where asylum seekers come here to make sure
that we know who these people are and what their claims are and
whether they are legitimate before we turn around and put them
on a plane back to an uncertain future.
The second goal is that every person who petitions the INS
for some benefit, whatever that benefit is, and regardless of
the outcome of that petition--whether it is a good outcome or a
bad outcome from their perspective--every person who petitions
the INS will get an efficient, hopefully short processing time,
but that when they walk away from the INS they say, you know, I
got the right quantity of services, I got the right quality of
service, and I got the courtesy that I am entitled to,
regardless of the outcome. That is what I want to see happen.
And like Senator DeWine says, that is going to take a culture
change in some places.
Thirdly, I want to re-energize the INS and, where
necessary, to change the culture in a very positive direction,
again, as Senator DeWine has pointed out. The vast majority of
INS employees--and I have met a few of them, and I am
impressed. The vast majority of them are dedicated,
professional, hard-working Americans. They deserve a workplace
environment that is full of opportunity and that they have an
enthusiasm for their mission.
I can tell you, Mr. Chairman and members, if we can
accomplish that alone, the rest of these problems are going to
fall in line a whole lot more easily.
Mr. Chairman, I have gone on too long. They told me how
long I should talk, but in closing, I want you and the entire
Congress to know that if you confirm me, I not only want to
work with the Congress, I insist on working with the Congress
because that is the only way that we are going to be successful
in this effort.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to answering
your questions.
[The prepared statement and biographical information of Mr.
Ziglar follow.]
Statement of James W. Ziglar, Nominee to be Commissioner of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
It is an honor to appear before you today as President
Bush's nominee for the position of Commissioner of Immigration
and Naturalization. I am grateful for the confidence that the
President and the Attorney General have expressed in me by
nominating me to this position.
The task that I will be undertaking, should the Senate
confirm me, is important to each of us as citizens and to those
who yearn for the freedom and opportunity offered by this great
nation. I am humbled by the opportunity to serve and I am
energized by the challenge before me.
I hope you will indulge me for a moment as I express my
gratitude for the honor and privilege that the Senate has
bestowed upon me for the past two
and one-half years in allowing me to serve as your Sergeant
at Arms. It has been a fascinating and historic experience. But
for all those unique experiences, what I will take with me are
the warm friendships that I have been privileged to form with
Members and staff of both parties and many ideologies. I will
miss the daily contact, but I won't be that far away should you
choose to confirm me for this position.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to tell you, this Committee and
the Senate what you can expect from me. First and foremost, you
will have my full cooperation with every member of Congress,
regardless of party affiliation or ideology. Further, I will be
particularly attuned to the concerns of the various committees
of jurisdiction. I will endeavor to always be forthright,
truthful and honest in my dealings with you, with the dedicated
employees of the INS and with the American people. That being
laid upon the record, I want to give you a flavor of my
philosophy and a brief overview of some of the goals I hope to
achieve, if confirmed. I will also endeavor to describe my
operating style, although most of you already have seen it in
action. Finally, I would like to conclude with a personal note.
PHILOSOPHY
The Declaration of Independence very simply and elegantly
states that ``all Men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness''. Those
words are deeply imbedded in my mind and in my heart.
The drafters of the Declaration of Independence did not say
that all United States citizens are created equal or that all
United States citizens plus other specifically described
individuals or groups are created equal-they declared that
``all Men are created equal''. That principle, and those that I
derive from my own religious beliefs and personal value system,
provide the foundation for my views on immigration and many
other issues. I hasten to add that I believe that the drafters
included all of mankind in the term ``Men''.
Notwithstanding the problems that we face in this country
involving race relations, opportunities denied, or unequal
treatment on the basis of economic or social status, I still
believe that the United States is that shining city on the
hill, casting a beacon of light and hope for all the world to
see and follow. We can, and we must, do better in addressing
our internal social and economic ills. But we are, and I hope
always will be, a living symbol of religious, political and
economic freedom and opportunity. That makes us a magnet for
those who share our dreams and hopes.
My greatest hope is that there will be a day when all
nations achieve democracy, freedom, opportunity and prosperity
and, therefore, people no longer will need to search for a
better life elsewhere. My greatest fear is that the day will
come when America loses those cherished qualities I just
described and consequently ceases to be a magnet for the tired,
the poor, the homeless, the tempest-tossed, the wretched refuse
of teeming shores, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe
free. What a crime it would be if in our fervor to protect our
``way of life,'' we lose the very things that have made and
continue to make that way of life possible.
We should remember that a large number of the people who
come to our shores are economic refugees and are not here for a
free ride. They provide important services, labor and ideas
that keep our economy strong and vibrant. They are the analog
to the 19th century American pioneers that we so revere. They
are here to take risks and work hard. They remind those of us
who have lost a little of that pioneer spirit that opportunity
still abounds. They refresh and in fact, embody, the American
spirit.
America's strength is found in its religious, cultural,
racial, ethnic and intellectual diversity, and in our
willingness to honor and celebrate that diversity. Our
Constitution guarantees us the right to be different, to think
differently and, within the bounds of reasonable and just laws,
to act differently. The constant infusion of new immigrant
blood into our society tests and strengthens our nation.
Immigration is a virtue, not a distraction or a danger.
GOALS
Mr. Chairman, I recognize and support the principle that
every sovereign nation has a right-indeed a duty-to protect the
integrity of its borders. How you carry out that duty is a
measure of the character of a nation and provides a prism
through which individuals and other members of the world
community fashion their judgment of that nation.
If I am confirmed for this position, my primary goal will
be to insure that every person who comes into contact with the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, regardless of their
citizenship, the circumstances of their birth or any other
distinguishing characteristic, and regardless of the
circumstances under which they find themselves within the ambit
of the INS, will be treated with respect and dignity, and
without any hint of bias or discrimination. The first
impression is a lasting impression and we have only one
opportunity to make a first impression-the first impression of
America should be that of a compassionate, caring and open
nation of opportunity.
A significant part of this goal can be achieved by
providing efficient and friendly service to all who petition
the INS. Even if the outcome is one that a petitioner does not
like, I want his or her experience with the INS to have been
satisfactory with respect to the quantity, quality and courtesy
of the service provided. President Bush's goal of a six-month
standard for processing cases is appropriate and, I believe,
obtainable. We will put in place processes, performance
standards and accountability measures that will allow us to
achieve the President's directive.
My goal is to provide the leadership that will create an
atmosphere and a culture where those who have the
responsibility for enforcing our immigration laws do so in a
vigorous, measured, consistent, even-handed and fair manner.
Where force is required, only the minimum amount necessary to
achieve a legitimate law enforcement objective will be
tolerated.
I will encourage the employment of common sense, compassion
and good judgment in the decision-making process at every
level, particularly those areas where the INS has wide
discretion. I believe that the vast majority of INS employees
today are exercising that good judgment. But there are
instances where common sense has not prevailed or discretion
has been abused. We will not tolerate such actions or conduct.
I want to insure that we detain only those persons who
clearly must be detained by mandate of law or that should be
detained, consistent with due process requirements, for the
protection of society. Those persons who are detained must be
free of abuse, harassment or any other form of substandard or
discriminatory treatment. I regard the detention issue as a
critical issue, particularly as it pertains to children and
families. I pledge to you that I will work with you to
guarantee that the most vulnerable of immigrants, especially
children, are treated with particular care.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I am committed to accomplishing a
rational restructuring of the INS in order to deliver the
services required of the agency in the most efficient,
consistent and courteous manner. Although I have not arrived at
any firm conclusions as to the form or manner of the
restructuring, I am convinced that an overhaul is needed.
OPERATING STYLE
I want to emphasize what I stated at the outset--if
confirmed, I intend to carry out my duties as Commissioner of
Immigration and Naturalization in a non-partisan, even-handed
and fair manner. I have attempted, and I hope succeeded, to
follow that path as Sergeant at Arms and I will endeavor to
carry on in the same manner. Immigration is not and should not
be a partisan issue--it is a truly American issue.
You all know me fairly well, and you know that I believe in
following and enforcing the rules. You can rest assured that I
will do my best to execute the laws as enacted by Congress and
interpreted by the Courts. Where I have discretion, I will
always endeavor to exercise it in a fair, compassionate and
common sense manner.
I give you fair warning that I will be a strong advocate
for the almost 33,000 employees of the INS. I have gotten to
know a few of those employees in the past few weeks and I am
impressed with their dedication, hard work, loyalty and
professionalism. Because of some adverse publicity and harsh
criticism over a sustained period of time, INS employees have
been painted with a very broad brush. One would think that
everyone and everything is dysfunctional. I do not believe it
and neither should you.
I am firmly convinced that the vast majority of INS
employees are just like those I have met in the past few
weeks--dedicated, hard-working, loyal and professional. What
the organization needs are leadership, support, a clearer sense
of direction, and recognition that the organization has
experienced explosive growth in the past few years. Where we
lack resources to do the job, you can be assured that I will be
on the Hill asking for your support. Where our existing
resources are not properly aligned or not properly managed, we
will see to it that American taxpayers receive their money's
worth. INS employees can expect me to do my best to help create
an atmosphere where performance, integrity, creativity and
risk-taking are valued. I want INS employees to have rewarding
careers and to experience the satisfaction of knowing that they
make a positive difference in the lives of millions of future
Americans.
To achieve the aggressive goals that the President has set
for the INS, it will take much more than leadership from the
Commissioner, It will require that we all accept the mantle of
leadership--the President, the Congress, the Attorney General
and each and every employee of the INS. Together we will be
able to do remarkable things. together we will help fulfill the
dreams of so many whose very lives and freedom depend on
actions taken by the INS.
PERSONAL
I am aware that criticism has been leveled at the President
for nomination someone who has no discernible experience in the
field of immigration law and policy. I understand and
appreciate that perspective. I am honored that the President
and the Attorney General sought me out for this important task
and I am committed to doing my best to justify that trust that
has been reposed in me.
I consider myself one of the most fortunate individuals on
the face of this earth. I have been blessed with a wonderful
family, great friends, good health, financial success and a
wide variety of work and life experiences and opportunities. I
hope that my experiences in the public and private sectors have
prepared me to take on this very difficult task with a measure
of wisdom and judgment.
I grew up in very modest circumstances. It was the
opportunity that American provides that made it possible for me
to succeed beyond my wildest expectations. My wish and goal is
that all Americans and all those who yearn for the freedom and
opportunity that America providers, will have that same
opportunity to achieve a dream that is beyond their wildest
imagination.
Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the opportunity to be
here and for the opportunity to serve my country.
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Senator Kennedy. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for
your comments.
I am going to ask you just to talk a little bit about these
organizations that you have been a part of and that have
impacted needy people overseas. But let me mention just a
couple of observations.
One is I welcome the fact that you are going to tell us
what you need over there at the INS, because I think you need a
lot. You have the broad issues of policy, and I will mention a
couple of those, but we understand that. Today we ought to be
talking about your own background and experience and competency
to deal with the challenges of the INS. And down the road, we
will get into the greater details and the specifics of
legislation.
But that is an agency that is in trouble. I hope you will
ask the Attorney General to visit the INS. I can remember when
my brother was the Attorney General and visited the INS, and it
was the first time in 40 years that any Attorney General had
ever gone down there. I hope you invite him down there and have
him spend some time and tell him what you need and tell us what
you need, so that when you come up here on appropriations, you
can say, Look, if you want us to answer your constituents
within, you know, 2 weeks or 3 weeks, I need X appropriations.
If you want it in 6 months, give me X minus this. And if you
want it in a year, don't expect anything better if you give me
Y appropriations.
I think we have got to understand it, and we haven't had
many people who were willing or had the confidence that you
really have in dealing with the Congress. And I think you are
finding out from this hearing that we want to really hear it. I
think people have enormous confidence in your own very
successful private sector expenence--understanding management,
understanding what is necessary to run a department,
understanding what it means in order to get the morale up in
terms of developing an organization. You have had remarkable
success at all these things. But this agency really needs that
kind of leadership, and I think that that is going to be
enormously important as you go down the line.
I would just, if I could, ask you one area, which you have
referenced, and that is the unaccompanied immigrant children.
As you know, in 1999 the INS took in its custody 4,607 children
who came to the United States unaccompanied by a parent or
adult guardian. More than 2,000 of these children are held in
jails and youth detention centers across the country, even
though the overwhelming majority of these children, 80 percent,
have committed no crime. The INS continues to pursue this
policy 7 years after the INS agreed to hold the children in the
least restrictive setting appropriate for minors with special
needs.
I have been appalled, quite frankly, by the way that many
unaccompanied alien children have been treated by the INS, and
this treatment has included the shackling and the handcuffing
of children, who are no threat to themselves or others, long
periods of confinement, inappropriate penal facilities,
pressuring children to voluntarily depart the country without
having access to counsel and adequate avenues of humanitarian
relief when that relief might be appropriate.
So would you be willing to take a good look at this issue
and review it and give us your judgment about how we can try
and deal with that?
Mr. Ziglar. Senator, I mentioned that in my opening remarks
for the simple reason that it is at the very top of my list. Of
course, I have a lot of things at the very top of my list, but
that is one of them, absolutely.
Senator Kennedy. Others are here and want to ask you
questions. I have referenced these other activities, and maybe
at the end of the hearing, after we have some questions, I will
ask you about some of those.
Senator Brownback?
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
again, Mr. Ziglar, for being here.
I want to focus on treatment of refugees and the refugee
reform area. You mentioned some comments about that on the
detention issue at the outset, and I appreciate you saying
that.
I note in looking back in the history of the country and
kind of digging the old wells that are still out there, it was
400 years ago, approximately, that the first refugees hit our
shores. Those were the Pilgrims that came here, set foot on
Plymouth Rock. They were seeking religious freedom at that
time. And then George Washington had this great comment about
receiving refugees into our country. He said this, he said,
``The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent
and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of
all nations and religions.'' And then President Bush even just
last week at Ellis Island said these words: ``America at its
best is a welcoming society.'' A consistent thread of how we
treat both the well-to-do and those who, by struggle and by
whatever means, are coming to our shore.
We have talked some privately, and I have held a hearing
here on the treatment of asylum seekers and on refugees. Can
you flesh out any further what you are looking at in the brief
period of time you have had a chance to look at what should the
INS be doing differently? I think the detention is a key
starting point of looking at particularly asylum seekers, if
there are ways not to go into detention, rather by working with
non-governmental organizations that proffered and made offers
to keep track of individuals prior to going to hearings. But I
am wondering if you have given any further thought on this
particular subject.
Mr. Ziglar. Senator, I have given a lot of thought to this
one. My knowledge of what has happened is based upon what I
have read and stories that I have heard, a lot of which I heard
up here from you folks. I want to look at the facts and the
cases up close when I get there, but I can tell you that I am
not one who particularly likes the idea in general of people
being detained unless they have been convicted of a crime or
unless they create some kind of danger to the community.
So my inclination in general is not to detain people unless
there is a really valid reason, subject to all the due process
requirements. So you will find that I am going to look at
alternative ways to manage these problems, particularly with
asylum seekers, children, and others, by hopefully using
community-based organizations or other ways of being able to
treat these people like the human beings they are.
Senator Brownback. An issue close to home for me is what I
mentioned in my opening statement about foreign-born
physicians. In Ulysses, Kansas, I was there traveling--oh, this
is probably a year or better ago and met the physician
community. There are five physicians in Ulysses serving Grant
County, Kansas. And the physician community consists of two
Canadians, a Brit, a Pakistani, and somebody from Trinidad.
That is the physician community that is there. We are heavily
dependent upon foreign-trained physicians, yet I am finding in
our casework INS has severely limited the longstanding
definitions used to grant national interest waivers,
particularly for physicians.
One effect of that was to force small hospitals sponsoring
physicians, in many cases they do in my State, serving on J-1
exchange visas to endure really a very time-consuming and
expensive process of labor certification through the Department
of Labor.
I raise it and bring it to your attention because I hope
you will be willing to work with a number of us, particularly
from rural States, where these are a number of our health
personnel, on dealing with this topic. It is coming up
increasingly with nurse shortages. We received a number of
medical technologists that are foreign born, and I would hope
you would give that some of your attention as well.
Do you have any initial thoughts or comments on that?
Mr. Ziglar. Senator, I am obviously aware of the issue and
the problem. I can't say that I have studied it in enough
detail to know how to approach it.
One interesting fact, though, is that as much as I heard
about that issue over here, I have the good fortune of having a
number of Members of the House side who are friends,
notwithstanding the fact I work in the Senate, that have called
me about that very issue, particularly because they have a lot
of rural areas that they serve. And they have a real problem,
and it is clearly something that Congress, both sides, is very
interested in and something I will clearly take very seriously.
Senator Brownback. Well, I hope you can have that at the
top of your agenda because it really goes to a great need in an
area that I think there is opportunity to help a lot of people
out on all sides. I have found, too, that the ones in Kansas,
the foreign-born physicians, will a lot of times then spend
time in sending resources back to their home country frequently
as well, particularly if it is a nation with not as developed
an economy as ours, that they use the resources and the
development that they get here to help more people back home as
well, which to me is the positive, the double positive that you
can get from something working together like that.
Senator Kennedy. Senator Durbin?
Senator Durbin. Thank you.
Mr. Ziglar, during the course of your interviews within the
administration in preparation for this position and this
hearing, is it your understanding that you will be called on to
discuss policy when it comes to immigration, your experience as
Commissioner, suggestions you might have for changes in policy?
Mr. Ziglar. Yes, sir, Senator, it is. And, frankly, if I
hadn't had a chance to have serious input into the policy, I
wouldn't have taken the job.
Senator Durbin. Well, I am glad to hear that because you
will be on the front line and will see firsthand how these laws
work or do not work.
My observation is this: I think that the immigration laws,
as we have written them historically in this country, really
are not as relevant as they used to be. Our world is so mobile.
People move so easily back and forth. What took a several-week
boat trip for my mother to come from Lithuania to the United
States is now a matter of a few hours in an airplane. And I
think that reality is changing immigration as we know it in
this country.
Just this past Sunday, President Vicente Fox of Mexico was
in Chicago, greeted by some 25,000 cheering people. This is the
fastest-growing minority in the State of Illinois. It grew by
69 percent in the last 10 years, over 1.3 million Mexicans in
our State. That is a lot different than we have seen in the
past. Things have changed. And I think we have to reorder our
thinking and how we deal with it in a sane and legal way.
There are so many people living in the United States today
who are undocumented. At times in our history we have declared
that if you have been in the United States for a certain period
of time, you have been a good citizen, haven't broken the law,
are making a good contribution to the community, we are going
to give you a chance to become an American citizen. The last
time we did it I think was 1986, wasn't it, Senator Kennedy?
Senator Kennedy. That is right.
Senator Durbin. And we said if you had been here since
1972, you have your chance, we want you to be part of the
American family.
We haven't done it since. It has been 15 years. And you can
imagine the millions of people who are out there now in
questionable status.
Do you think it is time for us to renew that opportunity,
to say to people, if you have been here, been a good citizen
for a period of time, we will give you a chance to become a
legal American citizen?
Mr. Ziglar. Senator, as you know, in the newspaper there is
a lot of speculation about discussions particularly with Mexico
in that vein. I have not been privy to those discussions. I am
not sure what all the considerations are. I would rather not--
since I don't have the knowledge base to give you an answer
about that in the context that we are in, I would rather be
given a little time to study it, and then I would be more than
happy to sit down with you personally and talk about it. But I
don't want to make news on something where I am not involved in
it yet and haven't been involved in it.
Senator Durbin. Well, that is fair. I don't know if you can
go so far as to say what you feel about this policy and what
you feel about our past efforts to give people who have been in
the United States for a long period of time, whether they
should have that kind of opportunity, without getting into
specific numbers or timetables.
Mr. Ziglar. Senator, let me say it one very short way, if
you don't mind, and that is, I am not anti-immigrant.
Senator Durbin. That is good for a person at the INS.
I will give you an example that I referred to earlier. It
relates to a bill that I am sponsoring, and I hope to prevail
on my beloved chairman to hold a hearing on, and that relates
to a phone call that I received in my Chicago office. A
fascinating story. A high school student in Chicago, Illinois,
Korean, a musical prodigy, applied to the Juilliard School and
was accepted. Her parents, everyone, her family, just elated at
the chance that she is going to be able to pursue her musical
career.
She filled out the application forms, came to the
realization her parents had never, ever been legally documented
in the United States. So, of course, it meant that when it came
to scholarship assistance, under Federal law she couldn't
qualify for it. We prohibit that if you are not documented. If
she had been trying to go to a State university, she couldn't
qualify for in-state tuition because she was undocumented.
So we contacted the INS and said, What is this young girl
to do? And they said, ``Go back to Korea.'' Well, there is no
place to go back to. Her family is here. America is her home.
That is an illustration of where our law has taken us, a
law that, sadly, you are going to be asked to enforce. Time and
again I think you will see the desperation and frustration that
we see in our offices.
What is your feeling about the way we treat people in that
predicament, high school students who have been here for years,
5 years, 10, 15, done everything right, and now are being
denied an opportunity for a college education because of our
law?
Mr. Ziglar. Senator, once again, I don't mean to be
evasive. I don't know enough about this issue. I am aware of
it. I don't know enough about it to give you a reasoned,
learned opinion on it.
I do know that the Department of Education has a lot of
play in this issue, also, and that it probably is going to take
an effort, a cooperative between the Education and Justice
Departments and the Congress, obviously, to work out this
issue.
But I hear you, and I will promise you this, that we will
give it our best.
Senator Durbin. I promise you this: I will give you at
least 24 hours after you have taken the oath before I call you
and ask you again.
Thank you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Ziglar. Mr. Chairman, could I make one comment?
Senator Kennedy. Sure.
Mr. Ziglar. Back in, I think, 1982, the chairman asked the
Congressional Research Service to do a history of immigration
and naturalization laws and trends. If you haven't read it, it
is fascinating because it is a travelogue of American history
and culture. And, Mr. Chairman, I hope that you will ask the
CRS at some point to update it, maybe next year. But I think
that would be a great--it is a great document, and I am sorry
that more people haven't read it.
Senator Kennedy. That is useful. It was a very helpful
examination of the history. And it is important to know. We had
some very odious aspects of immigration, the McCarran-Walter
Immigration Act, the Asian Pacific Triangle that discriminated
against Asians, and the national origin quota that
discriminated against Europeans. So we have had some difficult
times over that, but it is an important part of American
history and the Immigration Service.
Senator Kyl?
STATEMENT OF HON. JON KYL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
ARIZONA
Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome Jim
Ziglar, a friend of long, long standing prior to his service to
the United States Senate. And I think by virtue of my
conversations with him and those that everybody else has had,
he is well aware of the challenges that lie before him. He is a
person of great good will who understands how to listen as well
as how to make decisions, and I am confident he will do a
superb job in this position, notwithstanding the difficulties
that are inherently involved.
He is also aware that there are literally two halves to
this job which are greatly different from each other. One has
to do with enforcement of laws; one has to do with
implementation of laws relating to immigration matters,
citizenship and the like.
There are issues relating to the possible reorganization of
the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I know he has his
own ideas on those, and I am hopeful that he will soon be able
to weigh in with his views since there are those of us in the
Congress as well as the administration that would like to get
on with whatever changes might be made. And I don't prejudge it
in any way. I am anxious to hear, Jim, what you have to say
about those issues, and I know the administration has been
waiting until you are in place to do that as well.
Mr. Chairman, let me just make two comments, and if Mr.
Ziglar wants to comment on them, that is fine.
Just relating to the issue that our colleague from Illinois
talked about, each one of us has stories. I could tell you
stories about people in my own State that are--while they are
anecdotal, I suppose they represent large segments of the
population that really tear at your heart about experiences
that people had that are heart-rending. And we have to learn
how to deal with those because of the reality that there are
people here who suffer one way or another and who would like to
have the benefits of American citizenship.
By the same token, I think we also have to recognize that
the United States is a Nation of laws, that that distinguishes
us, frankly, from a lot of countries from which immigrants wish
to come because of the very fact that their countries don't
treat people equally. They are not nations that abide by laws,
that grant people freedom.
In fact, one of the first things that people applying for
citizenship learn about our country is that we are a Nation of
laws, and that means that people obey the law. And I think,
therefore, it presents a difficult situation for all the folks
involved in immigration to deal with people who have broken
laws and yet who have very difficult stories to tell.
We should not, as we consider these issues, think only with
our heart, but recognize that in the long run it is precisely
because we are a Nation of laws and that we enforce those laws
that we remain a great country, a country that can afford to be
a beacon of hope to the rest of the world and, indeed, as I
said, a country that everyone else--most everyone would like to
come to.
There is a specific problem in my own community that I
haven't had a chance to mention to you, and I just wanted to
mention it, and I hope that my colleagues can perhaps help with
this, too, because it gets back to the very difficult problem
of resources. We have talked about the delay in processing of
various kinds of documents that INS needs to process, the
delays that occur in applications and so on. There are also
problems that result from a lack of resources on the Border
Patrol side of things.
We have been adding the numbers of Border Patrol agents to
our border with Mexico to great effect. It has been able to
stem the tide of smuggling of contraband drugs, illegal
immigrants and so on.
One of the things that has occurred as a result, though, is
that we have closed down some offices in the interior. In my
own State, in Phoenix, for example, there is no more uniformed
Border Patrol.
The net result is that people who have come to the United
States illegally, many of whom have been smuggled in by what at
least the Mexican Americans call coyotes, are horribly
mistreated. They are the subject of robbery, rape, and assault,
kidnapping, and there is no way really to help these people or,
even when they are discovered, to be able to send them back to
their country of origin in a safe and humane way. There is no
way to prevent felons from melding in with this group,
including the very coyotes that bring them over and take
advantage of them.
I am very glad that both Mexico and the Justice Department
and local law enforcement have begun to focus on the arrest
and--the tracking down and arrest and prosecution of these
smugglers, these human smugglers, who mistreat people so badly.
They take all of their money, mistreat them, and then basically
turn them over to American law enforcement, which can't deal
with them very effectively, because this is one way to get at
the heart of the problem and in the meantime save a lot of
people from some very difficult circumstances.
We will need to have more resources. When I mentioned this
to the Attorney General, he said, well, does that mean we
should take people from the border and bring them to the
interior? Of course, that is just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
So I guess my plea to both my colleagues as well as you is
that we, A, recognize the nature of this problem; B, the
opportunities that it actually presents for us to do something
worthwhile both in enforcement of law and helping people in a
human way; and provide the resources necessary not just to put
the people on the border to protect our borders, but also to
provide what services are important and necessary in the
interior of the States.
It is going to require more money. I don't expect you to
comment or solve that problem today, except I am sure you will
commit to look at it and do the best you can. But we also have
an obligation up on this side of the dais to do the best we can
in providing the resources for you to do your job.
That was more of a speech than a question, but if you would
like to comment in any way, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Ziglar. Well, Senator, I am very aware of the issue you
are talking about, and, in fact, fortunately, what you talked
about, you and I have talked about.
The smuggling rings, the kind of people that are doing
that, what they are doing to these innocent folks that are
trying to get here is just despicable. And then, like you say,
when they get here, we don't know what to do with them. It is
clearly a very difficult problem. It is going to require more
resources, and it is going to require a flexibility in the
organization that will allow us to move our resources more
readily to where we need them at a particular time.
I want to make sure that when we ask for resources up here,
we are using the ones we already have most effectively. But I
can tell you that I won't be reluctant, as you know, to come up
and ask for resources. I have certainly done that as Sergeant
at Arms in order to take us into the 20th century on technology
up here. If you have a good reasoned approached to the
situation, I find the Congress to be very willing to help
resolve problems, and you can bet I will be up here talking
with you about it.
Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you very much.
Senator DeWine?
Senator DeWine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Jim, I am delighted with your comments about being
concerned about children. You and I talked about this in the
office the other day, and, you know, anecdotally, probably the
worst stories we get are children placed in detention and what
happens with them and how they are treated, how they are not
treated.
One of the things I would like for you, if you could--not
today, but I would like for you to look at is how much of this
problem can administratively be corrected and how much really
do you need legislation to correct. I think that is for this
Congress something that we need to look at. I don't believe
that the previous administration really got into it deep enough
and exhausted their remedies, and I would like to see what
could be done administratively, and then if we have to do
additional things, then we should obviously do those as well.
Another problem that I have run into in trying to determine
what is going on is trying to get statistics out of the INS.
And they are horrible. And you just cannot make good policy
judgments, this Congress can't, you can't as the upcoming head,
without those statistics. And it's not just a question of
keeping statistics for statistics purposes, but these are
things that we really need to know. And I would be more than
happy to share with you when we have more time specific
examples of things that we tried to find out and we couldn't
find out. We just have to know how it is operating to make
those decisions.
And so I think when you look at the reforms that you are
going to have to make, it seems to me that one of the things
you need to do is to start to gather the facts, and the best
way to gather the facts is to come up with better tracking
systems.
Any comments on that statement?
Mr. Ziglar. A couple of things, Senator. One, the issue
that you just brought up about how much can we do
administratively is a very important issue to me. At the danger
of saying something that maybe I will have to retract, I
believe that an awful lot of the reform over at the INS can be
done without coming to Congress asking for legislation, because
I think we have the authority to reorganize the place and to
undertake initiatives within the place without having Congress
mandate exactly what the form of management structure ought to
be.
I would just as soon try to do this in a rational way
instead of having some Rube Goldberg kind of contortion on the
organization, and that is what it looks like now. I mean,
looking at the organizational chart, I still can't keep up with
where everything goes. And that means that you don't have a
very efficient place.
So I think we can do a lot of things without having to ask
Congress to spend its time on legislation that will achieve the
purposes that I have seen in the legislation that has been
advanced in various fora here about the INS.
The other side that you are talking about, the statistics,
I understand that, and one of the problems in gathering
statistics is you have to have a way to compile them. You have
got to have the place to put the data and then analyze it, and
that is where the IT, or information technology, upgrades that
we need to do will help us a lot by being able then to gather
good information, put it in there, and then bring it to a
central point so it makes some sense.
Senator DeWine. Good. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Kennedy. Well, I think unless there are other
questions, Mr. Ziglar, we want to thank you. I have been asked
by the chairman of the committee to indicate that we would keep
the record open for a week for questions, but there is desire
for us to conclude this and pass this prior to the time of the
recess. It is all of our intention to do it as early as
possible. But since the hearing was on shorter notice, he had
at least indicated that he wanted to give a chance for people
that hadn't gotten to, to submit questions.
Senator Brownback. Did the chairman indicate when he would
hold the vote, the committee vote, by chance?
I think it is his desire that we are going to conclude it
before the break.
Senator Brownback. Good.
Senator Kennedy. That is certainly what I would hope that
we would do it as early as possible.
Senator Brownback. Great. That would be excellent.
Senator Kennedy. So we will process along those ways.
If there are questions--I have just a few which I will
submit, but we will do it in a timely way and get all the
material together and make every effort, and I am confident
that we will act in the very, very near future.
Again, we thank you and congratulate you and wish you well,
and I look forward to voting in support of your nomination.
The committee stands in recess.
Mr. Ziglar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been a
pleasure.
[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]