Doris Meissner
Doris Meissner
Doris Marie Meissner is a former Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency previously responsible for immigration enforcement in the United States. She headed the INS from October 18, 1993to November 18, 2000, under United States President Bill Clinton and United States Attorney General Janet Reno. She is currently Senior Fellow and Director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute and has previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...
best clear deter objective ourselves ready
The real objective here is to deter that kind of migration, ... The best way to deter is to be ready for it, so it is very clear that we will not find ourselves overwhelmed.
anymore cross diego operations push respond san simply time trying
The smugglers are trying to relocate their operations there, ... They simply can't cross anymore in the San Diego area, so it's time to respond in El Centro and push back the smuggling traffic.
badly controls obviously operating perfectly system
The arguments for better immigration enforcement and controls are perfectly legitimate, and obviously the system as it's operating is now is badly broken, ... but by and large, anti-terrorism is a different endeavor.
era expression illegal issue law living
What you have here, with illegal immigration, it's an issue in the economy. It's an issue where immigration law is out of date, an expression of a different era than the one we're living in.
against basic democratic depressing market notions recipe rule totally wages worker worst
What we have now is the worst of all worlds. We have the market totally in charge. It's not only a recipe for worker exploitation and depressing the wages of Americans. It's also against all of our notions of the rule of law, and basic democratic principles.
advantage basically legal migration system
have basically used the legal migration system to their advantage.
border cross harder time today
Today this border is harder to cross than any time in history,
family found
found the family functioning very well as a family.
allow cared conditions deeply family forcible sides spoke transfer various
She spoke on various sides of the issue, ... She spoke about how deeply she cared for the child, how much she did not want there to be a forcible transfer, but she also spoke about how she would never part with him, about how the family would never allow the transfer to take place under the conditions that were required. There were many contradictory statements.
air airplane arms base emerge father flown force hours miami neck operation safe saw tightly wrapped
This was evidenced when I went to Andrews Air Force Base just hours after the operation and saw a safe Elian with his arms wrapped tightly around the neck of his beaming father emerge from the airplane on which he had flown from Miami to Washington,
again april firm
It was my firm conviction, then and now, that we did the right thing on April 22, and we are doing it again today,
option prepared
That is not an option I'm prepared to entertain, ... There is no place for an arbitration panel.
decision legally
It is the right decision legally and it is the right decision morally.
admit chapters closing difficult example far history law might operation operations others peers pivotal proved reunion rose shared step textbook throughout view
Where others might have faltered, you rose to the occasion, ... This is not just my opinion, which I admit is biased. This is a view that is shared throughout INS and by your peers in other law enforcement agencies, far and wide, here and abroad. They have described Operation Reunion as a textbook example of operations preparation and execution. It also proved to be the pivotal step in closing one of the most difficult chapters in the history of INS work.