The terrorist attacks on the United States which took place on September 11, 2001, have had a number of far-reaching effects, among which changes in immigration policy must be considered to be of significance. According to Malone (2003), one of the most dramatic changes is that the U.S. immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which has served as the primary agency overseeing a variety of immigration issues, was virtually abolished as an autonomous federal agency and, as of February 2003, reconstituted under the new Department of Homeland Security as the Office of Citizenship and Immigration Service. Among the major policy changes is that local and state law enforcement agencies, along with their federal counterparts, are being required (and authorized) to use strict criteria in seeking out and detaining illegal immigrants (Pluvoise-Fenton, 2003).
Prior to 9/11, the normative framework overseeing U.S. immigration policy was the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952. Under the terms of the INA, legal immigration to the United States became relatively widely available and a substantial number of ônewö Americans began to populate the country (Immigration and Nationality Act, 2003). Today, the Office of Citizenship, created by House Resolution 5005, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, has eliminated the INS and created a new mechanism for granting visas and citizenship and training/educating applicants for American citizenship (Welcome to the à 2003).
Under the Homeland Security Act, according to Malone (2002), three departments within this new cabinet-level bureaucracy have been created. One handles border protection, another enforces immigration laws in the nationÆs interior, and a third handles naturalization, residency permits, asylum claims. While a part of the agencyÆs mission is to cut waiting times for permits and citizenship applications, another mission objective i
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