Immigration Service

Masil J. Mason, a retired U.S. Immigration Service official and former border patrolman, died of pancreatic cancer Sunday at Howard County General Hospital. The Ellicott City resident was 90. Born and raised on a cattle farm in Hamilton County, Iowa, he enlisted in the Navy in 1934 and served on the USS San Francisco and Quincy on shakedown cruises in the Pacific. In 1940, he joined the U.S. Border Patrol and worked on the Mexican and Canadian borders for four years. He also served in the Naval Reserves during World War II. He subsequently joined the U.S. Immigration Service and retired in 1973 as an administrator in the commissioner's office in Washington.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -For immigrants in this Rust Belt city, the doorway to America leads through the friendly building on Front Street. But on Friday, the American Civic Association - a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams - became a killing zone. A gunman barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, preventing escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.

WASHINGTON -- Accountants at the Immigration and Naturalization Service have won agreements over the past few weeks to collect at least $5.6 million in fees that the agency had not bothered to recover before, for lack of accounting clerks.Airlines take a $6 fee from each arriving international passenger, collected as part of the ticket price. They are supposed to turn that money over to the INS, which uses it to pay for its inspection programs.But the Justice Department learned this year that the agency was failing to collect the fees from 22 airlines and six cruise lines -- a loss of as much as $23 million a year, while the agency's obligations were about $60 million greater than its projected income.

Last summer, Sidney Bonilla applied to become a United States citizen, taking a step toward security, empowerment and the right to vote in the country he has called home for half his life. But seven months later, the El Salvador native waits, one of more than a million applicants caught in an unprecedented backlog of naturalization cases nationwide. He is frustrated with the process and the uncertainty that comes with the long wait. "This is where I grew up; this is my home," said Bonilla, a construction worker in Prince George's County.

Swamped with Salvadoran applicants seeking work-permit extensions, federal officials in Baltimore are telling the immigrants to apply by mail or consult non-profit agencies for help.Advocates praised the plan for saving Salvadorans, most of whom live in the Washington suburbs, an unwanted trip to Baltimore and for allowing the immigrants to keep their work permits while waiting for an extension.But they also said the plan burdens low-budget, non-profit agencies."All the administrative burden is being shifted from the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service]

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to improve the nation's immigration system, a federal advisory panel has decided to recommend abolishing the troubled Immigration and Naturalization Service and assigning its duties to other government agencies.Declaring that the immigration service suffers from "mission overload," the panel, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, is proposing that the Justice Department, the immigration service's parent agency, retain responsibility for controlling the border and removing illegal immigrants.

WASHINGTON -- The Immigration and Naturalization Service, trying to reduce the temptation for employees to take bribes, has decided to stop issuing work cards in district offices. Instead, beginning next spring, the cards will be mailed to immigrants from one or two central offices.Work cards are given to immigrants awaiting hearings on their status. With the cards, they are free to look for work. But the cards are also prized because in some states they can be used to obtain driver's licenses, Social Security cards and other documents that are often used to demonstrate citizenship.

James F. Greene Sr., a deputy commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the 1970s, died Sunday of complications from Parkinson's disease at the Vantage House Retirement Center in Columbia. He was 80.Mr. Greene began his career with the immigration service in 1941 as an agent at a border horse-patrol station at Amado, Ariz., where he often performed his duties on horseback.He rose to an administrative rank in which he oversaw the service as it expanded into new areas of responsibility with the influx of refugees fleeing Southeast Asia and the havoc spread by the drug trade.

Like millions before him, Cho Seung-Hui arrived in the United States as a child with parents who were granted permanent residency status. Cho, the 23-year-old college senior who killed 32 people and then himself Monday at Virginia Tech's campus, was 8 when he and his family arrived in Detroit in 1992, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. The family later settled in a Virginia suburb outside Washington. Cho's last contact with immigration officials was Nov. 27, 2003, when his legal resident identification, or "green card," was reissued.

TIJUANA, Mexico -- The regional chief of the Mexican immigration service in Tijuana and two deputies have been charged with corruption in a growing scandal involving an alleged network of Mexican federal officials allied with immigrant smugglers.The Mexican secretariat of the interior is investigating allegations that the immigration service delegation in Tijuana earned as much as $70,000 a week for providing safe passage through the border region for Chinese, Central American and other non-Mexican immigrants.

Like millions before him, Cho Seung-Hui arrived in the United States as a child with parents who were granted permanent residency status. Cho, the 23-year-old college senior who killed 32 people and then himself Monday at Virginia Tech's campus, was 8 when he and his family arrived in Detroit in 1992, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. The family later settled in a Virginia suburb outside Washington. Cho's last contact with immigration officials was Nov. 27, 2003, when his legal resident identification, or "green card," was reissued.

Describing the nation's immigration system as inept and indifferent, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings announced legislation they said would streamline the process for soldiers seeking to become U.S. citizens. The legislation was inspired by the death of Army Reserve Spc. Kendell K. Frederick, 21, of Randallstown, who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Oct. 19. Frederick, a native of Trinidad, moved to Baltimore County when he was 15. He died while returning from a trip off base to have fingerprints made for his U.S. citizenship application.

Masil J. Mason, a retired U.S. Immigration Service official and former border patrolman, died of pancreatic cancer Sunday at Howard County General Hospital. The Ellicott City resident was 90. Born and raised on a cattle farm in Hamilton County, Iowa, he enlisted in the Navy in 1934 and served on the USS San Francisco and Quincy on shakedown cruises in the Pacific. In 1940, he joined the U.S. Border Patrol and worked on the Mexican and Canadian borders for four years. He also served in the Naval Reserves during World War II. He subsequently joined the U.S. Immigration Service and retired in 1973 as an administrator in the commissioner's office in Washington.

WASHINGTON - As many as 30 foreigners whose visas were revoked because of terrorism concerns may still be in the country because the State Department failed to pass vital information to the FBI and border agents in time to stop them from entering the country, congressional investigators said yesterday. Jess T. Ford, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office (GAO), told a congressional panel that the government agencies were doing little to track down the people or to investigate how much of a danger they pose.

The Foreign-born Information and Referral Network - a Columbia nonprofit organization with the ambitious goal of helping immigrants start new lives in America - is struggling with a roughly $50,000 deficit, the largest in its 20-year history. The only organization in Maryland that works comprehensively with all foreign-born people, FIRN has gone back to budgeting basics as it tries to lift itself out of debt. And its basic premise is, "We get the money first, and we spend it second," said Dawn Fisk Thomsen, the group's interim director.

SEATTLE -- Americans and Canadians could face huge lines and delays of 12 hours or more at U.S.-Canada border crossings if an immigration law takes effect as written next month.Critics say any border jam-up will be the result of Rep. Lamar Smith's crusade to crack down on immigration. Two years ago, Congress passed a provision sponsored by the Texas Republican requiring that border officers check records of all noncitizens entering and leaving the country.The Immigration and Naturalization Service says it does not have the manpower or the technology to fully conduct such checks, which are supposed to go into effect Oct. 1.But local officials and business leaders warn that even a half-hearted attempt by the INS to obey the law would cause record delays, with potentially crippling effects on U.S.-Canada trade.

NEW YORK -- In a sunny fourth-floor conference room atBellevue Hospital in Manhattan, 10 of the government's most seasoned arbiters of which refugees shall stay and which shall be turned away met last week over bagels and coffee to talk about torture.Aided by color slides, they discussed in gory detail electrocutions, beatings, burnings and other afflictions that leave visible scars. They also delved into suffocation, sleep deprivation, mock executions and other forms of psychological torment that leave no telltale marks.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Eight months after vowing to overhaul its troubled citizenship program, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is still struggling to put new procedures in place to prevent immigrants with criminal records from becoming citizens.Two highly publicized efforts by the agency failed to fix a system that naturalized 180,000 immigrants last year without proper criminal-background checks.At one point, auditors found that only one of 23 field offices under review was following the new orders.

NEW YORK -- In a sunny fourth-floor conference room atBellevue Hospital in Manhattan, 10 of the government's most seasoned arbiters of which refugees shall stay and which shall be turned away met last week over bagels and coffee to talk about torture.Aided by color slides, they discussed in gory detail electrocutions, beatings, burnings and other afflictions that leave visible scars. They also delved into suffocation, sleep deprivation, mock executions and other forms of psychological torment that leave no telltale marks.

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to improve the nation's immigration system, a federal advisory panel has decided to recommend abolishing the troubled Immigration and Naturalization Service and assigning its duties to other government agencies.Declaring that the immigration service suffers from "mission overload," the panel, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, is proposing that the Justice Department, the immigration service's parent agency, retain responsibility for controlling the border and removing illegal immigrants.