Gene Mcnary

The Senate Tuesday night, on a voice vote, confirmed Gene McNary as head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. McNary, 53, a former prosecutor and unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of Missouri, has been the top elected official of St. Louis County since 1974. He succeeds Alan C. Nelson as commissioner.

Peter H. King missed both the "rhetoric" and the "reality" of illegal immigration by a country mile in his July 19 column. The reality is that until the greed in the agricultural industries ran rampant in the late '60s, the workers in those industries were of all races, colors and creeds. I went to school in the Yakima Valley in Washington state with the children of those workers. While there were children of Hispanic origin, they and their parents were U.S. citizens and proud of it. The farmers got the illegals far cheaper and pocketed the difference.

President Bush announced Friday that he will nominate attorney Gene McNary, chief executive of St. Louis County, Mo., to be commissioner of immigration and naturalization. If confirmed, McNary, 53, would succeed Alan C. Nelson, who recently announced his resignation. McNary, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in 1984, has been St. Louis County's chief executive since 1974.

Counterpunching forcefully against criticism that Border Patrol agents are too violent, the chief of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service told a congressional panel Wednesday that he is tired of immigrant rights groups making "ludicrous charges" and urged them to view such accusations more skeptically.

Alan C. Nelson, abruptly ousted this week as immigration commissioner, will continue working as a consultant to help smooth the transition for his successor, the Justice Department said Thursday. Nelson, a holdover from the Reagan Administration who was replaced Monday as head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said he expected to continue working for several months as a consultant. "There is a lot going on the last eight years that needs to be packaged for the new commissioner," said Nelson, commissioner since 1981.

Peter H. King missed both the "rhetoric" and the "reality" of illegal immigration by a country mile in his July 19 column. The reality is that until the greed in the agricultural industries ran rampant in the late '60s, the workers in those industries were of all races, colors and creeds. I went to school in the Yakima Valley in Washington state with the children of those workers. While there were children of Hispanic origin, they and their parents were U.S. citizens and proud of it. The farmers got the illegals far cheaper and pocketed the difference.

Counterpunching forcefully against criticism that Border Patrol agents are too violent, the chief of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service told a congressional panel Wednesday that he is tired of immigrant rights groups making "ludicrous charges" and urged them to view such accusations more skeptically.

Despite criticism from Latino groups that he lacks sensitivity and immigration experience, St. Louis, Mo., County Executive Gene McNary appeared Tuesday to be headed for confirmation as commissioner of the troubled Immigration and Naturalization Service. Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination, McNary, 54, cited his 2 1/2 years as a public defender when asked by Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.

Plagued by a decade of "weak management systems" and "inconsistent leadership," the Immigration and Naturalization Service has degenerated into a group of separate programs that waste resources, duplicate efforts and fail to solve problems, congressional auditors have concluded.

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Gene McNary said Wednesday that requiring all working-age Americans to carry an "employment authorization document"--denounced by critics as a national identity card--would slow employment of illegal aliens and reduce discrimination in enforcing immigration law.

The former head of the Western region of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has issued a final, scathing report that paints a picture of a national agency lacking direction and strong leadership from Washington.

"I knew nothing about immigration," Gene McNary cheerfully admits early on in a discussion of his qualifications to be commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service before 1989. That's when President George Bush named McNary, a four-term Republican county executive from St. Louis, to head the chronically overburdened and understaffed agency. Coming from the ethnically homogenous suburbs of St.

Plagued by a decade of "weak management systems" and "inconsistent leadership," the Immigration and Naturalization Service has degenerated into a group of separate programs that waste resources, duplicate efforts and fail to solve problems, congressional auditors have concluded.

The federal government should not bar newly legalized immigrants from community social programs while allowing illegal aliens access to the same programs, the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service said Thursday. The assertion by INS Commissioner Gene McNary allies him with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp in a growing flap over immigration policy caused by Costa Mesa's plan to deny government funds to groups that serve illegal aliens.

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Gene McNary suggested Thursday that the federal government consider providing loans to Nicaraguans who fled the civil war in their country but now want to return home and rebuild the nation's economy.

The new head of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service, in a toughening of border patrol policies, said Thursday that his agency will seek to formally deport--and possibly jail--aliens who repeatedly slip into the United States and their smugglers. The policy shift represents a significant alteration of the INS' customary practice of allowing most unauthorized immigrants to return voluntarily to their homeland after capture.

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Gene McNary suggested Thursday that the federal government consider providing loans to Nicaraguans who fled the civil war in their country but now want to return home and rebuild the nation's economy.

After repeatedly signaling that he was out, the Bush Administration on Monday replaced controversial INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson, immediately naming his deputy as interim head of the embattled agency until a permanent successor takes over. James L. Buck, deputy commissioner since Sept. 20, assumed the duties of acting commissioner, ending Nelson's often stormy seven-year tenure. Gene McNary, the top elected official in St. Louis County in Missouri, "remains the leading candidate" to head the INS, David Runkel, chief spokesman for Atty.

The new chief of the Immigration and Naturalization Service has proposed sweeping changes to the agency that could result in more enforcement agents along the U.S.-Mexican border, more consistent sanctions against violators of immigration laws and better services for immigrants and their families.

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Eugene McNary, in his first official visit to the busy U.S.-Mexico border crossing here, said he favors tightening documentation loopholes now hindering enforcement of laws making it a crime to hire undocumented workers.