Mfr Nara- T5- Ins- Ratliffe Gerri- 10-16-03- 00971

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Commission Sensitive

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MEMORANDUM~ORTHERECORD Event:

Interview of Gerri Ratliffe immigration counsel to DAG Gorelick, 1995-97 INS Office of naturalization /policy 1998-2000 INS Congressional Affairs Director 2000-Jan. '02

Dates: October 16, 2003 Special Access Issues: [none] Prepared

by: Janice Kephart-Roberts

on October 28, 2003

Team Number: 5 (Border Security) Location:

GSA

Participants

- Non-Commission:

Participants

- Commission:

Gerri Ratliffe

Janice Kephart-Roberts Tom Eldridge Note: no classification requiredDocuments received:

none

Documents requested at interview under pending document request: Recording: NOTES: Background. • • • • •

• •

•

BA, JD, MP A JFKennedy School of Government.. 3 years at a small firm 90-93 at OMB doing legislative clearances, including budget and hearings on immigration matters 93-95 DOJ legislative affairs special counsel, mainly immigration issues 95-97 special counsel to DAG Gorelick. Worked with Seth Waxman (ADAG), Amy Jeffress (special ass't). Handled immigration portfolio and POC for INS after Jeffress left. POCs at INS were Mike Becraft, and two special assistants, Park Bramhill and Anglea Reading. 97-98 JFK School ofGov't 8-98 returned to INS on New Office of Naturalization Process as Acting Deputy Exec Assoc for Policy originally headed by Jim Engis. This office reported to Wyrsch. . 2000-Jan. '02: Acting Congressional

Affairs Director

2

Work in the DAG's office. Priorities of the AG. • 8:30 am Get-Back meetings. These would be DOJ program principals' mtgs where every morning the AG would go around the room with her 300-some getback list and ask what was going on with her many issues, anything from attorney fraud in immigration benefits to woman-fitted vests for female border patrol. This process was totally inefficient and the AG never was able to actually prioritize anything. • Cuba was always a big issue. • CT was never on the list for the INS. These issues went to criminal division or the Exec Office of National Security. Would only liaison on CT issues, ifissues ever arose. Doesn't recall any. Never in on special interest cases. • Citizenship. o Not properly screening aliens prior to granting citizenship whereas the o WH just wanted them through. o DM and Bob Bach were the creators of Citizenship USA. The AG expressed concerns about the lack of integrity in the process, and the Commissioner didn't follow up in a detailed way. The AG had to hit the roof to get action. For example, in the fall of '96, the AG raised a concern about an inadequate paper trail in the processing of the citizenship applications. The AG said "I don't want another person naturalized until proper processing shown." But no citizenship ceremonies were cancelled. GR had to go and tell the AG and the AG had to call DM and say "Don't do it again." Border Czar. Allen Burmson, the US Attorney for San Diego was appointed the border czar by the AG to coordinate with other agencies on policy. Amy Jeffress worked with him. Couple of his successes was turning an old San Diego warehouse into a detention facility and putting in place a policy to prosecute more consistently illegal reentries and coordinate on detention proceedings. INS resisted the border czar. PDD-39. Not handled by GR at all. White House contact. In early 1995, Doug Farbrother

of the White House met with DAG Gorelick and Seth

Waxman requesting a further streamlining of the citizenship process. Jamie thru Farbrother out of her office. DonsiaStrong-Hill

worked on the Domestic Policy Council on immigration issues.

3 NSC: worked on Cuba issues. A GIINS Commissioner Meetings. The AG had thursday 11 am weekly meetings with DM in the AG conference room in the DAG's office. There were often private talks on the side with DM and MAW. GR would do the agendas for the meetings, called "INS Weeklies". These weeklies would require answers on ongoing projects and programs and resources. Teresa Logue was the ass't responsible for compiling these. INS would do the get backs, but clearly hated it. Attendees included: o Comm'r o Deputy comm'r o COS o Principals o Congressional relations o On the DOJ side would be AG, DAG, Amy, Seth, Steve Colgate, and GR. There seemed to be a mutual respect amongst the parties, but DM wanted the AG to be more hands off and resented the nit-picking. Jamie would often nail DM on the border patrol hiring plan; DM didn't really have one, so JG would end up doing a lot of the work. Bob Bach was very secretive, and his only relationship seemed to be with DM. He wouldn't do the work. Would promise results, not deliver, and then would say didn't know when the report would be done and was totally nonresponsive. Who worked with well: Barbara Strack, OPP Acting; Jackie Bednarz; Phil Bush and Victor Cerda, principal legal advisors; and Laura Baxter.

Work at INS Congressional

Relations.

Received 30,000 pieces of mail per year at hdqtrs pre 9/11, with about 1000 of those being substantive concerns from Congressmen. Everyone cared about immigration and always drowning in correspondence. There was never one voice coming from Congress. Senate Judiciary was more moderate and pro immigrant, whereas House Immigration was more anti-immigrant. All SW border and big city congressmen cared about immigration. Doesn't recall any Congressman interested in INS role in CT. Her staffers were: Sarah Taylor, Jim Ha (crim); Ruth Tintary (int'l) and Maureen Stanton (benefits and inspections) : Procedure for handling Congressional inquiries: o Exec Sec would get the letters o These letters sent to Congressional Affairs o Congressional Affairs assigned them to substantive sections o Certain members would be read on substance, and some required DM signature.

4 Didn't think DM took Congressional inquiries too seriously. What was the policy on answering letters? We'd word the response in a manner that Congressman wanted to hear, if possible, and follow-up in a substantive manner. Congress always seemed scornful of the INS. GR modus operandi was to try to win over people by being professional herself, and hope that the word spreads. DM relationship with the House and Senate approps.: DM wouldn't rollover. Always very substantive and never really changed her point of view due to political pressure. MAW was even less interested in Congress. Rooney was purely in maintenance mode, and never proactive. Student tracking. Don't know if the Sen. Abraham letter on the fee reg had an affect on support for CIPRIS; doesn't recall CIPRIS~ Post 9/11 INS activity. Basically, nobody at INS cared about CT pre 9111. After 9/11, there were daily warroom mtgs. I didn't attend b/c I was very pregnant. Sarah Taylor did, with Mike Becraft and Mike Pearson. The 9111 Operations room met twice daily with 20 or 30 people trying to track people. All the sudden, backlogs didn't matter nearly as much as security.