The INS no longer exists. It is now called CBP, or Customs and Border Protection. The Immigration and Naturalization Services, or INS, was part of the Department of Justice, and in the 1970's and 1980's were described in law enforcement circles as "Jack-Buddha thugs". Lots of raids, lots of cleaning house. Then, perhaps in response to the politically correct movement of the 1990's, they toned things down a bit, some would argue too much, others not enough. In 2004, the INS changed to the CBP when they were absorbed by the newly created Department of Homeland Security (also responsible for FEMA, to give you part of the bigger picture). New agency, new director, a gal named Katrina, total chaos. In 2006 a Border Patrol agent in Arizona was quoted as saying "We don't need new laws. We need to enforce the laws we already have, that would be the first place to start. With the 'catch and release' policy, it feels like we're fighting immigration with both hands tied behind our backs." To be sure, the system is fraught with incompetent people. But, like most careers, be they blue collar, white collar, law enforcement, whatever - across the board you find the most debilitating incompetency at the managerial level. The higher-ups. Not the agency as a whole. The actual border patrol agents on the ground risk their lives every night to catch the "coyotes" and their cargo (i.e. humans). Alone on patrol in the mountains of the southern Arizona desert, if you were incompetent you'd be dead, either from the heat or the coyotes (i.e. humans). The agents aren't incompetent. And neither is the INS. It doesn't exist anymore, which was my original point.