Gerald Kleczka: “I will not pursue the amendment, I will withdraw it at a later time, but I would like to establish for the record the…”

“I will not pursue the amendment, I will withdraw it at a later time, but I would like to establish for the record the situation that the amendment seeks to address. Mr. Chairman, last summer the INS instituted a designated fingerprinting service to ask local firms to enter into contracts with the INS to help them out in this fingerprinting operation. The Senate bill and the bill before us today does away with outside interests, outside firms, nonprofit organizations from doing the fingerprinting for the Immigration Service. The immigration Service under both products will do this function themselves, and that is fine, and I do not take issue with that because of some of the past problems. However, the situation that we are looking at today is that the INS is not positive, they are not sure that they are going to refund the fees collected from these organizations who, in good faith, paid the money to do the service for a period of 3 years. I have been contacted in my district by two organizations who sent them their application fee of $370. Now they are being told by the Congress, We don't need you any more. Their inquiry is whether or not they are going to get their money back, or a prorated portion of that. I called the INS, and they indicated that they are not sure whether or not they are going to refund the dollars. The amendment's purpose is to mandate that the INS give the money back.”