Mfr Nara- T5- Ins- Erenbaum Allen- 10-16-03- 00238

Hpfocj& [Unclassified]

MEMORANDUM

FOR THE RECORD

/~tfLf)

@

Event: Interview with Allen Erenbaum, former Counselor to INS Commissioner Doris Meissner Type of event: Interview Date: October 16, 2003 Special Access Issues: None Prepared by: Janice Kephart-Roberts and Joanne M. Accolla Team Number: 5 Location: 301

7th

Street, SW, Room 5125, Washington, DC

Participants - Non-Commission: Allen Erenbaum Participants - Commission: Thomas R.Eldridge, Joanne M. Accolla Background Started his employment with INS in August, 1995 initially as Counsel to the Commissioner (which was a Schedule C appointment); later became Counselor to the Commissioner in June of 1996 (SES appointment). Liz Fein(?) was the other counselorstarted about the same time. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked about Mr. Erenbaum's background in immigration. He said he had experience from the Hill working on immigration legislation, and had oversight expenence. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked who he reported to and he replied Jack Brooks. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what kind of oversight. Mr. Erenbaum said - trying to make the agency work. He was recruited by Liz to the agency. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what problems did he see at the agency. He replied that being on Capitol Hill, it was very discouraging getting answers to questions even about things that were relatively simple, and even in trying to help agency in funding, or looking for help from them to try to shape legislation - seemed to be very hard to get information - there was a not clear sense of what was going on in the agency. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked as counselor, did the 2 of you work on the legislation that was coming up? He replied not really. Mr. Erenbaum was asked to talk about his job as counselor - what did he do. He said a

1

lot of public affairs work. There wasn't a permanent public affairs director at the time and he did a lot of work on organizing events, messaging, editing press releases and things like that. He did not really have a background in that. He performed in that position until February 1997 primarily in public affairs and as liaison with the White House on immigration issues; went to meetings on immigration. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked if any of these meetings involved counterterrorism and he .said not that he could recall. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe was around when PDD39 was written and he replied no. Mr. Erenbaum was asked ifon June 21,1995 was there follow-up action that he might be familiar with - 3rd paragraph "shall use all legal means available " Did he ever have any discussions as counselor to the commissioner on this? He replied that the only involvement he had was on Congressional inquiries on specific cases. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe could tell us what were the White House priorities for the INS in 1996-1997. He responded that a priority in 1995-96 was in showing we had a balanced immigration policy and trying to highlight some of the enforcement successes we had on the border regarding criminal alien removal. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what does a balanced 'immigration policy mean exactly? Mr. Erenbaum replied it means enforcing the laws but being welcoming to legal immigrants and people applying for citizenship, and having a generous policy and treating people well as they dealt with the agency, and on the processing side of things, Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked if there was ever a strategy paper put together for the White House other than interior enforcement strategy? Was there something more comprehensive, an over-reaching policy document? He said he was not sure. He was required to do a triennial report - his sense was it was an overall policy document and was produced at least twice, but didn't know ifit was produced by INS or was a piece put in a DOJ report. It was however a mandated report to Congress. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what was his relationship with the Commissioner. reported directly to her and had daily contact. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what were the high prioritiesHouse or different; what was she focusing on?

He said he

were they the same as White.

2

Mr. Erenbaum said it was hard to remember - she was focused certainly on those things that he mentioned; big naturalization movement underway, that was the major initiative on the services side. She focused on the crisis the agency was engaged in on a daily' basis. Mr. Erenbaum was asked if he remembered if counterterrorism, in any form, ever came up with her in his discussions with her? He replied: NSSU I don't recall every talking to her about; JTTF don't recall - vague recollection of maybe some press conference involving JTTF but that would have been it - don't recall talking to her. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked about student tracking. He replied he remembered being at a briefing with her and a bunch of other senior people when they were talking about expanding the pilot program. He was asked if from his memory she was supportive of student tracking and deploying it nationally. Mr. Erenbaum replied he didn't recall. Afterwards Irecall her being supportive of it. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what was his interaction with Bob Bach. He responded that they would. meet - some - not a lot. The Commissioner had a relationship with him. Mr. Erenbaum said he was not going to tell Ms. Kephart-Roberts a whole lot today because the information she is interested in was not being talked about - at least with him . . Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked if the Commissioner received daily or weekly briefings from George Reagan on intel. He said he didn't know; if he had to guess he would say no way to daily briefings, and ifhe had to guess, not weekly briefing either. He said intel used to send around reports on a weekly basis that consisted of reports from the 'field. His recollection is that they were not entirely useful. They would say things like a border patrol officer in Douglas thought he saw a group behind a bush - turned out to be a bob cat. Ms. Kephart-Roberts queried not collated intel, or threat assessments? Mr. Erenbaum said-there was some pattern analysis, but nothing with terrorism written on it. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe had contact with Dan Cadman? Mr. Erenbaum replied a little bit when he was Miami district director; but after he came back to DC - not really only in prep for a hearing. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe testified at other hearings besides Kyle one. Mr. Erenbaum seemed to remember he testified at one - didn't know if it was Kyl hearing. He added that they were a little fearful because of the way he (Dan Cadman) left the Miami field office - but he remembered thinking he was a really good person and an expert and good to testify.

3

Ms. Kephart-Roberts said in 1997, you moved into the Congressional Director position and what did that job entail? He said he was responsible for liaison with Congress in almost all respects from INS headquarters, which meant he was responsible for dealing with Congress on oversight requests, on hearings, hearing testimony, legislation within their jurisdiction or legislation that they were asked to comment on. He was part of the regular clearance process on Congressional inquiries - about 50,000 phone calls, 10,000 letters - maybe a 1,000. He did not have supervisory responsibility for the Congressional people in the field. Each district office had Congressional people in the field - he worked closely with them and developed a national strategic plan, training for those people on how to do Congressional relations better. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe was able to take care of huge backlog. He said yes, they changed the process. It was incredibly cumbersome with paper moving around and around - changed the management - streamlined inquiry process. Had 23 people working for him - half assigned to case work and correspondence. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe had to change anything about hearing testimony; how would it come about. He said typically we would identify who was the appropriate witness and that person's office would do the first draft of the testimony, which they would give to his office and they would take a look at it and tell them what changes needed to be made. Mr. Erenbaum asked ifhe would you have a blanket right to edit and he said no - it would always go back; I would edit substantively if it was wrong. Ms. Kephart-Roberts said and ifit was correct, but was not what you wanted Congress to know, then what? Mr. Erenbaum said it depends. He didn't feel that we had an affirmative obligation to say bad things about what they were doing. I would also say that there are positive ways to communicate without shading what you are saying. So there was that kind of stuff. He would never take out something that was negative; in fact he would spend more time on trying to kick the tires on the testimony. A bigger problem was testimony coming back that was more positive than it should be; things were being glossed over. Whenever he knew something was missing or there was jumping from A to C and forgetting B, he would make them address it. He tended to know what Congress already knew. Initial testimony would be drafted naively, general. And he would say that this is not going to cut it and to explain more. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe ever got the sense that they did not have the information and he said sure.

4

Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked which committees did he report to. He said Judiciary, Appropriations. He was asked if he ever got pulled into Government Reform, and, he said yes, on the House side. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked who had the more active role - House or Senate? Mr. Erenbaum responded definitively the House. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked when dealing with Appropriations, did he find help in the sense of friendly, receptive people being interested in helping? He said somewhat in the Senate - not in the House. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked if Judd Greg head of Appropriations when he was there? He said yes, and the staffer was Kevin Linsky. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe was the staffer that put forward the repeal language on CIPRIS. He queried there was repeal language on CIPRIS? Ms. Kephart-Roberts said yes, in 2000. He said he never heard of it. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe recalled - thought it was 2000 - the Spencer Abraham letter that came in with 20 senatorial signatures. He said he recalled that one. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what kind of effect did that have on the Commissioner; did she take that kind of thing seriously? Mr. Erenbaum responded - one like that, sure, absolutely. Whenever you received a letter from the chairman it was taken very seriously, whether it was from the full committee or subcommittee. He added that he couldn't actually tell what effect that letter had. Ms. Kephart-Roberts ifhe would you get phone calls directly and he said sure. He was asked ifhe received a call from a senior staffer, would he report inquiries like this to the Commissioner. He responded that she knew whenever there was a hearing and she knew who was going to testify. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked about policy letters. Mr. Erenbaum said she generally signed policy letters. Ms. Kephart-Roberts said so for example a letter from Sen. Kyle, she read that letter and signed off on it? Would you put it in front of her? He said he wouldn't be the one to put it in front of her. He explained that he would sign off on it then it went to the Executive Secretariat, chief of staff and then to her. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe would get it back again and he said he thought they would mail it out.

5

Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe could recall ever having situations where the Commissioner did not sign letter? He said he didn't recall any. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked if Bob Bach was in the loop, and he said sure. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifit was in the editing process. Mr. Erenbaum said on a policy letter, he wouldn't see it until it was signed off on by the people who needed to sign off first. Mr. Erenbaum and Ms. Ms. Kephart-Roberts discussed routing of letters when they came in to the office. He said when a letter came in it was assigned to field operations which is the proper place for it; but did not come to his office first, even though it was a policy letter. There was no management tracking over it, but it would be of interest to him to know that it was being considered. Finally he told staff that anything from the chairman and policy letters need to get to him immediately. They then discussed sign offs and who is in charge of a particular letter. Mr. Erenbaum explained the existing system INS correspondence system. They had to work within this system and that this was actually a big improvement from what it was; it was the first time they had an automated tracking system. At least here they knew where to start in finding something. He would expect the letter would have been signed offby no less than Dan Cadman and potentially Mike Pearson. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked who was his DOJ contact - Bob Brink? He replied that Bob not his person; I worked with John Trasvina and then Patty First, Karen Robb did that for a while. Ms. Kephart-Roberts said lets talk about Congress a little more, want to get your sense of what oversight they were doing and what types of things they were interested in - House side first. Mr. Erenbaum said House side was interested in everything the agency was doing. Lamar Smith had very strong views on immigration which were contrary to the Administration's views and so he had a lot of oversight hearings on legal immigration and management. The agency's management became an easy target. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked for good reason? Mr. Erenbaum replied: did the agency have' a lot of management issues - yes - but they were being somewhat exploited in an effort to try to advance an immigration agenda which didn't have to do with the agency's management issues. We went through a period I think in 1998 when we had oversight hearings every week in the House on one matter or another. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe felt it was more like a political agenda being advanced by Lamar Smith and not true oversight? Mr. Erenbaum though it was an element of both. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked did it effect change? He said it effected some change; but it effected tying up the agency; if you have 3 parts of the agency working on hearing testimony and trying to get responsive information from systems that don't always

6

provide information.at certain times, we were spending a lot of energy responding to Congressional oversight. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked were there negative changes, statutorily or by shear political pressure that were substantive, things that were negative that Congress did ~ laws or policy pressures that stick in your mind that were detrimental to INS? Mr. Erenbaum said he was sure there were. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked for specifics like pulling funding or repeal of legislation. Mr. Erenbaum said he couldn't of anything specifically. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what about positive things did Congress do to move the agency forward? . Mr. Erenbaum said they got a lot of money for enforcement. He was asked if there was a difference between border enforcement and interior enforcement at the agency. He said they spent a lot of time on SW border when he got to the agency initially - because there were many more people coming over the SW border; Congressional pressure was strong. Ms. Kephart-Roberts added that whereas there was a different agenda for the northern border- obviously the districts around the northern border depended on cross-border trade. Mr. Erenbaum was asked ifhe thought that's where the Spencer-Abraham amendment came in - that would require the INS to adjudicate far more applications - workers paperwork? Mr. Erenbaum said Abraham's views were generally motivated by his sense that immigration was extremely valuable to the U.S. economy Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked counterterrorism - who was interested, did any body care? Did you every get inquiries - from Lamar Smith - did he ever do oversight? Mr. Erenbaum said in 1998 he thought there was a House immigration subcommittee meeting on counterterrorism and he was surprised by it. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe recalled hearing interest or pressure from Congress about what INS was doing at the border; that they had an obligation to work to prevent terrorist entry, what were they doing in that regard - do you recall getting that notion from Congress? Mr. Erenbaum said no. Removal is a whole other thing; removing criminals. Ms. Kephart-Roberts said so the focus was on drug trafficking and violent crimes? He said he didn't remember anybody asking about terrorist or fighting terrorists.

7

Ms. Kephart-Roberts

asked about oversight on the Senate side?

Mr. Erenbaum said he was trying to remember - the Senate side was far more balanced in his view in terms of their interest and what they were trying to do; there was a lot less . oversight from Senate side and there were fewer hearings. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe thought the Senate should have done more oversight and what was the effect of Congressional oversight on the Commissioner. Mr. Erenbaum said the Commissioner was always very responsive to Congressional interests; she took it very seriously; she was not thinking the House is bad and the Senate is easy; she took it very seriously whenever she was involved in testifying on either side, because we were always in the cross hairs on issues. Hearing preparation actually does surface issues. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifit helps solve issues and Mr. Erenbaum said sometimes. Mr. Erenbaum was asked if it helped to have questions from Kyle and Schumer on student tracking - did it get the Commissioner's attention? Where it would actually change something that was going to happen? Mr. Erenbaum said he didn't know ifhe could put a specific example on it but it did happen. He was asked ifit happened on student tracking, and he replied he didn't know. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe ever sensed a disconnect between authorizers and appropriators, and he said sure. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe sensed what the authorizers were interested in - did it every make it into policy mode? Mr. Erenbaum said on the House side, Lamar Smith's chief counsel became the appropriations person. On the Senate side, I think they worked together pretty well; but I'm not sure that there was that much; they were dealing with different things. I'm not sure the authorizers expressed a view about placement of money. She asked Mr. Erenbaum if there should have been a bigger connect there? In other words, how could you make Congress' role better in the process of overseeing INS and in its relationship with appropriators. . . Mr. Erenbaum said Congress could do a better job if they had better knowledge of the agency; his sense is that Congress has no idea about what is going on. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked how would they get that knowledge.

Mr. Erenbaum said he thought they should have an exchange program; they should work inside the agency for 3 weeks or a month.

8

Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked how many times was he asked to come in for a briefing on the House side? Mr. Erenbaum said they were very contentious; didn't get the feeling they wanted to be educated about it on the House side. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what about hearings for the sake of hearings. she has gotten the sense that this is the way it is instead of how can we solve problems; what do we think you should do, etc. What about disconnect institutionally - what should Congress do better; or maybe the disconnect is fine with you because they are not helpful sometimes' Mr. Erenbaum said he guesses in a perfect world he would want to have more collaboration among the authorizers, appropriators and agency. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked from his point of view what about the new DRS - there is no Senate oversight committee - what's your view on what the House has done and what the Senate should do in that regard. Mr. Erenbaum said he really didn't have a view because he doesn't know what they are doing. Mr. Erenbaum was asked about his views on the new DRS. He said he doesn't know what the best structure is but there is a clear need of an increased level of oversight given the size of the agency. And in his view the concern that the agency as diverse as this one is, that a lot of things can be hidden or mis-described as being under the guise of national security or anti-terrorism, when in fact something very different is being done. The agency should be focused on core missions and other components of it not involved in anti-terrorism should be allowed to function well instead of shoved off to the side, i.e. , giving people green cards, citizenships. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what he thought of new structure. He said he thought it was bad - a couple of things are bad - that immigration functions are so split that the only person in the DRS structure who can figure out that person's situation is the Deputy Secretary - e.g., you have a person who gets off a plane in Miami and they say they are applying for a green card; the inspector doesn't see evidence and puts them into some sort of removal proceedings. Nobody with authority there to say yes that person has a green card - the person for green cards 'are in CIS - the people responsible for the inspector is CBP and the people responsible for removal is ICE. In terms of a protocol on how to handle that person, things don't come together until you get to the Deputy Secretary level. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what if you put protocols in place? Mr. Erenbaum replied liaison means ineffectual to me. He was asked how would you solve it?

9

Mr. Erenbaum said he wouldn't have put the pieces together that way; an immigration structure which was more unified. ·CIS, CBP, ICE Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifit would work if you put all of them under Asa Hutchinson? Mr. Erenbaum said he thought you needed someone in charge of those 3 things all at once; if they report to Hutchinson or Ridge, whatever. My sense is that CIS was the step child and they didn't know where to put it. It doesn't belong in the whole department; but if it belongs somewhere, it belongs close to immigration so it would be better with the other functions but not alongside TSA reporting to Hutchinson. Given the current structure, I would create some whatever level position - take all 3 and make them an a separate directorate - immigration directorate because I think it is high enough level stuff that it deserves to be a separate thing, and have the 3 parts underneath it. Ms. Kephart-Roberts said 3 parts separated from each other? Mr. Erenbaum said he thought CIS should be apart from the other 2. Ms. Kephart-Roberts what is inspections considered?- they keep people out and they let people in - its both - and where does that go? Mr. Erenbaum said he didn't know - we had a lot of discussions about that when we were discussing organization and we kept it in enforcement, but not necessarily for the best reasons - for personnel reasons. The Senate wanted to initially put them on the service side which is not right, but then decided to put them in a middle position. There is clearly a dual function. Ms. Kephart-Roberts - does it work if you have 3 separate tiers? Mr. Erenbaum said you need someone setting policy at the top which applies throughout. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe thought to have intel pulled out - you have almost duplicative intel on CBP and ICE. Mr. Erenbaum said it makes no sense whatsoeverand should it be pulled off the top where __ is and have intel working to provide intel . Mr. Erenbaum said intel, legal, Congressional, policy all should be unified making a cohesive policy on immigration; which applies to ... and can Ms. Kephart-Roberts said and from that you can derive your counterterrorism policy. Mr. Erenbaum said absolutely. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked about his relationship with DOJ and James Castello. Mr. Erenbaum said he had a good relationship with Castello; worked a lot with both John Gordon and James Castello. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked about their role at DOJ.

10

Mr. Erenbaum said they were reflecting the AG; we had weekly meetings with the AG to go over issues; they worked for the DAG. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked ifhe remembered every CT coming Mr. Erenbaum said it didn't effect me. Ms. Kephart-Roberts

said you found them helpful; did you deal with budget folks?

Mr. Erenbaum said yes, dealt with Steve a lot on Citizenship USA business; we did a lot of work together in trying to do audits afterwards and trying to fix system; he found them helpful. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked his what was his view of the Commissioner. Mr. Erenbaum said the Commissioner is a very bright woman, who understands the issues; worked extraordinarily hard at trying to tum this monster ship around in incredibly challenging times. Very good with people; good with people in the agency. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked why did people in the agency dislike her so much - mid-level to pretty high level. Mr. Erenbaum said he didn't know. One reason is a lot of people in the agency have a very strong personal view of immigration which I think is counter to the Commissioner's; she had a far more balanced view. Others had a strong enforcement - When IRA IRA took effect in April of 1997, there were plenty of INS trial attorneys in the field, because the removal process was going to be toughened, and they waited for the new law to be effective so they could use the new law. To me that verges on abuse of power. She tried to shake things up at the agency. The agency had been misused for so long. Including tryingto get people to line up at 1 a.m. - now someone is saying isn't there a better way to serve people. At certain levels the agency felt like an "old boy's club" and she wasn't a part of it. She is an extraordinarily nice person. It wasn't because she was abusive to someone or anything like that. It comes down to what she was trying to do. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked what was MaryAnn Wyrsch's role. He said she was like the manager. Ms. Kephart-Roberts asked if she had a role in policy. Mr. Erenbaum said he didn't know - didn't get a sense; that there was a-lot of policy pursued, in fact while Bach was there, there wasn't any policy; not a positive view of Bob Bach.

11