Effect of document shredding on Nevada is unclear

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 11:18 a.m.

In the wake of indictments handed down Wednesday against two Immigration and Naturalization Service employees charged with shredding as many as 90,000 documents at a California INS data processing center, it remains unclear how many Nevada cases are involved.

A Nevada INS official and a leading immigration attorney contacted this morning said they didn't know anything officially about the shredding.

"I have not heard anything about the case," said Karen Dorman, officer in charge for the Las Vegas INS office.

Between February and April, thousands of foreign and American passports, birth certificates and other documents sent from California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam were shredded in the California facility.

"A lot of times I have to find out about these things by reading about them in the newspaper," Dorman added.

Local immigration attorney Peter Ashman -- who at the time the documents were shredded was head of the Nevada chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association -- said the INS never contacted him at any time about the problem, either.

He said many of his clients have been asked repeatedly to send paperwork to the agency that had already been sent during the time period the alleged crime occurred.

"Over half of my cases were getting requests for evidence at the time, which is very high," he said. "Do I know it's because the documents I had already sent them were destroyed? No I don't."

Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for the INS's western regional office, said the agency set up a hotline and dedicated additional staff to reconstructing the files of applicants whose papers may have been shredded shortly after the shredding was discovered in April.

Haley said that the hotline number -- (949) 831-8427 -- received hundreds of calls, many of which wound up not being related to the incident.

But Ashman said he and colleagues who were local members of the 11,500-member immigration lawyers association were never informed of the hotline.

"I never heard (of) or saw this hotline," he said.

He also said that there are people whose cases might not be resolved for five years under normal conditions, and may never know their documents were shredded until some future date.

Dorman, the local INS official, said that more publicity surrounding the case might be helpful.

"I would think that there might be a news release or something nationwide, since just because you're in one place today doesn't mean you're there tomorrow," she said.

Haley said the agency may have to do more outreach.

"I'm sure it may be being considered, since we were very distressed about this whole incident," Haley said.