Parting Memo by INS Official Blisters Agency

SAN DIEGO — Former regional Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Ben Davidian, in a blistering final report capping his 18-month tenure atop the INS’s Western hierarchy, painted a scathing picture of a confused agency wobbling adrift and lacking strong leadership and direction from Washington.

The internal document, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, amounts to a stinging condemnation of national INS Commissioner Gene McNary, whose broad efforts to centralize operations in Washington and strip regional chiefs of authority led to Davidian’s departure in March.

“There is a general widespread feeling that Headquarters issues guidance and policy unwillingly, only when it is required to do so, and almost never in written form,” Davidian said in the exhaustive, 2-inch-thick document, which is illustrated with color graphs and charts and was submitted to McNary in March. “When policy is directed, it is usually equivocal and contradictory.”

Davidian, who left the INS in March to take a post in Sacramento heading the California Fair Political Practices Commission, a state ethics panel, stated that telephone calls to Washington often went unanswered “for days,” hampering regional offices’ ability to perform a wide range of essential tasks--including hiring, budget planning, responding to complaints of discrimination and disseminating information to the press and public.

“This is simply an untenable management situation,” said Davidian, who headed the Laguna Nigel-based INS regional office, which oversees California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam.

For example, Davidian stated that guidelines were “virtually nonexistent” for the asylum program--a high-profile, more than decade-old initiative under which hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals have sought U.S. residence, fearing political and religious persecution in their homelands. “Those guidelines that do exist are largely uninformative, and the program simply lacks leadership and direction,” wrote Davidian, a 39-year-old attorney and longtime Republican Party activist in California.

In another area, Davidian characterized the INS’ record of providing training for supervisors as “terrible, at best.”

McNary was at a conference in Connecticut on Wednesday and unavailable for comment, said Duke Austin, a spokesman in Washington.

But McNary has previously defended his sweeping reorganization plans as vital to much-needed reform of a troubled agency that, according to a series of studies and audits, suffers from managerial and budget irregularities, inconsistent policy and enforcement strategies, and a general lack of accountability.

“Improved coordination at the national level will improve the balance between service and enforcement that is an essential element of our law,” McNary testified in April before a congressional panel examining the INS, whose bifurcated enforcement and service roles include protecting U.S. borders and daily processing tens of thousands of visas and other documents for foreign residents, visitors and students.

As part of McNary’s reorganization efforts, the four INS regions have already been stripped of most budget, policy and operational decision-making powers. And, as of July 1, the nation’s four regional commissioners will be renamed “administrators,” reflecting their reduced responsibilities, and all will be career INS employees, not political appointees like Davidian.

Many of Davidian’s criticisms--such as his comment that the generally dilapidated state of U.S. Border Patrol vehicles represents a “national disgrace”--echo earlier findings by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, and others who have turned a critical eye on the vast INS bureaucracy.

Like others, Davidian maintained that the Border Patrol, an INS uniformed enforcement body, is severely understaffed, particularly in the San Diego area, the favored entry zone for undocumented immigrants. He also cited a pressing need for more immigration detention space region-wide--a necessity already acknowledged by McNary and others.

Regarding Davidian’s criticism of the asylum program, Austin, the INS spokesman in Washington, noted that revamped procedures were put in place in April, following Davidian’s departure.

But much of Davidian’s criticism is pointedly aimed at McNary, who was named to the national post in October, 1989, after serving for more than a decade as chief executive of St. Louis County, Mo. Davidian’s closing report was addressed to McNary and distributed internally to top INS officials.

Davidian had been widely known as a foe of McNary’s centralization plans, and it was no secret that the two men didn’t get along. But Davidian had avoided direct public criticism of the nation’s top immigration policy-setter, crafting an external image of himself as a cooperative team player.

In his frank report, however, Davidian harshly criticized McNary’s leadership. “A solution,” to the INS’ many woes, Davidian wrote, “is clear, direct and specific policy-making from Headquarters. . . . All national policies should come from Headquarters after field input and full discussion of the issues.”

Davidian maintained that the agency’s four regional commissioners should continue to be political appointees--a position opposed by McNary, who has expressed dismay about the likelihood of chiefs carving out “independent fiefdoms” within the bureaucracy, a concern perhaps best exemplified by Davidian’s provocative predecessor, Harold Ezell.

“The perspective, experience and contacts brought to the job by a politically appointed Regional Commissioner are invaluable assets,” Davidian wrote, adding that unduly independent appointees can be simply fired if they do not adhere to Washington’s wishes.

Among Davidian’s other specific points.

* Centralization of hiring has created “untold hardships” on field supervisors, making it “extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to hire qualified and motivated personnel in a timely manner.” Transfers can take more than a year to complete, Davidian said, citing a new need for Washington’s sign-off.

* Reorganization efforts have had an “extremely detrimental” impact on the region’s Anti-Smuggling Program, which resulted in more than 400 convictions of alien smugglers in the most recent fiscal year but has nonetheless been targeted for revamping. “The uncertainly of the program’s future has adversely affected the morale of our Anti-Smuggling personnel,” Davidian said.

* It would be a “terrible mistake” to proceed with plans to close the Border Patrol sector based in Livermore, which is “a critical second line of defense for illegal immigration up into the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys.” Commissioner McNary has said all inland Border Patrol agents, including the 60 or so based at Livermore, should eventually be reassigned to the border strip.

The INS, a unit of the Justice Department, employs 15,000 workers and has an annual budget of about $1 billion.